


The Cost of Repairs

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Self-Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 06:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 78,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Connor struggles with his memory and creates an Instagram account to help categorize different moments in his life he doesn't want to forget.Gavin struggles with wanting to be alive, and plans to kill himself by October, and his evolving relationship with Connor isn't going to change that.





	1. January

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the [convin big bang](https://convin-big-bang.tumblr.com/) and [art by kuinshi!](https://kuinshi.tumblr.com/post/188321356001/it-is-going-to-hurt-but-gavin-kisses-him-anyway)

[ID: Sumo, laying on Hank’s couch, eyes closed and paws underneath his chin, sleeping soundly.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — ∪･ω･∪

posted **JANUARY 3, 2040 **

——————————

He has a problem remembering things. Things that happened when he was a machine. The worst parts of his old life creeps up like monsters—little nightmares of a girl falling off a rooftop or waking up in the cold, sterile environment of the CyberLife Tower. He gets flashes of blue blood but never quite knows if it belongs to him or not. Connor has shot so many people, he’s seen so many androids bleed out and he’s died so many times, been stabbed by screwdrivers or knives—

It will always be a mystery.

It wasn’t a problem before. He knew, as a machine, that there were pieces of the puzzle missing. Data that was lost in the times he was destroyed and re-uploaded again. He told Hank this, repeatedly. Even when he held a gun to Connor’s head with very little care in the world.

The last year and change of his life was spent trying to fix the problems he caused. Befriending Hank as himself instead of a machine designed to hunt down deviants. The friendliness he had offered up to the Lieutenant before was never for his own sake. It was for cases, it was for the better of their work relationship and environment. Connor needed to start over again. Do it himself. Figure out who he really is and working past the awkwardness of it all. When he showed up on Hank’s doorstep, he knew it was a shock. He knows that he wasn’t expected or even truly wanted.

But Hank let him in, and he’s been here ever since. Let back into the DPD after some convincing with Captain Fowler, with some legal mess he caused after killing guards trying to save the revolution. And now, he stands in the space between the kitchen and the living room, the blanket pulled around his shoulders to shield out the cold of the home, looking at Sumo who so quickly and eagerly took over the couch that he’d barely abandoned ten minutes ago.

And he thinks—

There are many times in his life that he wants to forget things, but Connor doesn’t want to forget things like this. He doesn’t want to forget this moment of peace he’s feeling now, the content nature of Sumo’s sleep, the soft snores and the warmth of a blanket set around his shoulders. Connor wants to cling to this. He wants to keep it forever.

So he searches, finds the first thing he can think of. An app that he can upload pictures to. A place he can send a little snapshot of his life, something he wants to remember. If anything were to happen to him again, if he were ever to have problems with his memory past his deviancy, if he ever died and was reactivated but had nothing but an unstable understanding of who he once was, he’ll have this. The basis to build off of. A foundation built from good memories and nice things.

And of course—

Sumo will be his first picture.

[ID: A coffee shop, saturated with dark brown and warm colors, creating a false sense of coziness.]

**GAYVIN-GREED ** — the coffee here is ok i guess ⅽ[ː̠̈ː̠̈ː̠̈] ͌

posted** JANUARY 7, 2040 **

**tina_tot ** you dont go to the place on birch st anymore?

| **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot mightve gotten into some shit w one of the baristas

| **tina_tot ** @gayvin-greed you slept with him didnt u

| **gayvin-greed ** @tina_tot yea,,,

| **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed (￢_￢;)

——————————

Gavin sets the phone down, pushing it away at Tina’s reply. She’s always so disappointed in him for being who he is. Not that she isn’t the same. Sleeping with random people she meets and never pushing for more. The difference between her and him is that she has hope to still be with someone. Find the perfect girl and get married. Move in with her army of cats. Decorate the place with those dumb fucking posters with the sayings like _ don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee! _ because she can joke about some things that he can’t. He isn’t allowed to let himself dream of a future where he can find a little bit of amusement out of something as cheesy and cringey as those.

Yes, he slept with the fucking barista.

No, he can’t ever go back to that place again.

But the coffee is just as good here as it is there, and all the barista are college-aged girls that look just as annoyed as he does about having to be here.

Gavin can’t hold it against her. He can’t be angry that Tina isn’t as damaged as he is. As _ unlovable _ as he is— 

But sometimes it’s hard. Hard to remember that someday, he’s going to be at her wedding. He’s going to be the one that’s helping her decide whether or not she should wear a veil. What ring would look best on her girlfriend’s finger. He can imagine himself at her house in ten years, helping paint the walls soft blues and building a coffee table for the living room. He can picture himself sitting in her backyard at barbecues and thinking about how no one is ever going to be at his side.

If he’s alive to see the day. If they still talk when they go their separate ways and don’t have the DPD holding them together anymore.

Maybe he won’t be there. Maybe he will be dead or alone and wishing he was dead, remembering the days they used to laugh together before he quit or before he did something stupid enough that she finally stopped talking to him. Maybe he will be by himself in his cramped apartment, crying himself to sleep while she’s somewhere miles away cradling an infant in her arms shushing them and singing lullabies.

_ Maybe, maybe, maybe— _

Gavin keeps thinking their friendship can withstand anything. But everyone always proves him wrong in the end.

Even he proves himself wrong.

[ID: A shelf of books with battered covers and broken spines.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Book shopping (´• ω •`)

posted **JANUARY 9, 2040 **

**lt.sumo ** any good finds?

| **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo I’ll let you know!

——————————

There is something very romantic to Connor about used books. He looks for ones with notes on the inside. The ones that have been carried around and passed from hand to hand. The ones that have a history. He thinks he likes that more than he cares about the actual story inside. He gains very little from nonfiction and classics, although they tend to have the most interesting notes inside of them. Students that have underlined and annotated different paragraphs about their findings for an essay in school.

It was Hank that got him into reading. When he was spending his nights laying on the couch with his eyes open, unable to sleep because some part of him didn’t truly require it. He didn’t need to shut down for eight hours a night to have his body charged enough to be used properly, and it was difficult. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust Hank, but it is a very complicated thing, letting his guard down like that.

And, the nightmares—

One moment he will be asleep and dreaming of something completely normal, like the DPD. The sound of people chattering, the sound of people laughing, and then suddenly—

A gun pressed to his forehead and the trigger pulled.

Hank wasn’t the one that first pressed a book into his hand and told him to read the pages of it, but it was his small collection that started to fill his time. Flipping through a novel and consuming stories to help fill the silence. Connor likes fantasy best. They tend to have more tragic endings, but it is nice to get lost in a different world. One where magic and dragons exist. Ones where kingdoms float in the sky and airships travel between them. Where people can bleed gold and bend the elements to their will.

Connor likes them, and there is a new one stuck in his bag every morning he heads to the station. A paperback sitting on the edge of his desk with a bookmark sticking out. Most often, a receipt from the place he bought it.

Hank has started to collect bookmarks, filling a coffee cup full of them. Connor never grabs from them, but sometimes sifts through the collection. They’re all different. Some cheesy with sayings printed on them above cartoon dogs next to a pile of books. Some just patterns of fleur de lis or plaid printed across. Some simply just one solid color—most often different shades of blue. Some have tassels and some are the type to clip to pages, some even magnetic. Connor doesn’t use them for the sole purpose of being afraid of losing it. He knows they’re just cheap little things, but he never wants to lose something that Hank felt important enough to spend the money on, to wait in line, to bring it home and stick it inside of the book he’s reading, replacing whatever scrap of paper he found to mark his place.

He browses the store today, looking through the shelves, plucking ones from the shelf that he remembers being mentioned when he scanned through the database, refining it to the ones he thinks he’d enjoy the most. But, he still picks up a classic or a textbook on his way out, wanting to flip through the little pencil markings in the margin and the sticky-notes stuck to the pages. A reminder that once upon a time, someone else owned this book and found things worth taking note of.

**JANUARY 11, 2040 **

Tina is friendly, kind in a way that makes him laugh even though most of her jokes are teasing him. Joking about things that make him laugh even if it’s about his tie or the fact he seems to only wear the CyberLife uniform he was given. She is the first person after Hank that he lets look at the picture of Sumo. Her eyes grow wide and steal the phone from his hand, mumbling about how cute the dog is.

“I haven’t seen him since Hank brought him in a few years ago. He used to take him on walks in the same park I go to with Mac.”

“Mac?”

“My dog,” she says, with a small smile. “You want to see?”

Connor nods, his phone given back to him with Tina’s profile pulled up. He gets distracted quickly, not looking at the picture of the dog but of the other ones, too. The coffee shops and cats and–

Gavin.

“The fuck are you two looking at?”

“None of your business,” Tina replies, but she smiles and turns her phone to face him anyways, the picture of Sumo pulled up. It isn’t the only one on his profile. There’s a picture for every day since he’s started this. Something that helps break them up, reminds him of how much time is passing.

They blur together sometimes. A slightly worrying thing. He’s an android. It shouldn’t be so hard to believe that when his internal clock says that it’s January 11th, it isn’t lying. It should be easier to distinguish the days. But it isn’t. He goes to the same job, he talks to the same people, there is little that is different in-between. The books he reads even start to feel a little too similar. Sometimes he finds that he’s lost sense of what he’s doing, realizes that he’s been staring at a blank page for nearly an hour.

This helps.

Pictures of the sky and the messy backyard and Sumo and Hank and pages of books. It helps.

“Where do you take Mac on walks?” Connor asks, ignoring Gavin, ignoring the way a little smile tugs at his lips when he sees the picture and the way his eyes move from the phone to Connor.

“I go to–”

“You took this?” Gavin asks, cutting Tina off.

“Y-Yes.”

“You think you’re going to be the next Instagram star or something?”

“I’m not—”

“You gotta tag your posts, idiot.”

Connor looks away from him, back to the app still open on his phone, the pictures of him interspersed rarely throughout Tina’s feed. Smiling and laughing. Caught with goofy expressions on his face. It’s hard to imagine it. It’s hard to imagine someone being like that. Someone that has held a gun to his head three times, who punched him in the stomach, who left him bleeding and dead on the Archive Room floor when Connor was too tired to keep fighting.

It was, really, the first thing he’s ever felt.

Tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of trying.

And then–

A wave of guilt, overtaking everything.

“There’s a park by Hank’s house,” Tina says, cutting through the awkward silence. “The closest one? It’s right in between my apartment and his place. We used to meet up there when Mac was just a puppy. They were best friends.”

“Okay,” Connor says quietly. “I’ll take Sumo there, then.”

“Make sure to blog about it,” Gavin says, sinking down into his chair opposite of them. “Wouldn’t want to go a day without posting that cute animal content people are always dying for.”

Tina offers a small smile, but it isn’t towards Gavin, it’s towards Connor. Like an apology._ I’m sorry he’s such a dick. _She might as well have said the words out loud.

“See you Saturday, then?”

“Of course,” he replies. “I’ll make sure to take a lot of pictures.”

Gavin scoffs, watches him as he walks away. Connor takes a glance back, his eyes still glued on Connor. He thinks, maybe, despite all of the things that have happened between them, Gavin is not as cruel as he acts.

[ID: A photo of Connor’s hand stretched out, holding tight onto a leash attached to Sumo’s collar.

There are a few inches of snow, packed down from dozens of footprints over it.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — with @tina_tot

posted **JANUARY 15, 2040**

**tina_tot ** ∪･ω･∪

——————————

Mac is a hyper dog. Never sitting still, running around in circles. It makes Tina laugh in a way that Connor hasn’t heard very often. The DPD isn’t the place for many jokes to get very far. Gavin and Tina are secluded to their own personal space, Connor focused on his work. But her laugh is light and airy and like a child’s. Ridiculous and harmless fun from watching a dog attack piles of snow. Sumo is different. A little bit more of a lazy, old dog. Kind of like Hank in that way, Connor thinks. Content with just walking the path slowly, sniffing at other dogs. He doesn’t bark—not like Mac does. Mac is loud but never vicious.

It’s fun, this little day in the park. Tina and Connor’s conversations shifting back and forth between the few topics they know it’s safe to stay on. Work, mostly. But not the work that makes Connor wish he could quit and find somewhere else to go. Not the dark cases with the gritty details but the ones that sometimes make each other laugh or smile in amusement at the things people do. Things that are sometimes too humorous to be illegal.

He watches her bend down to pet Mac and talk to Sumo. Spinning words together that Connor hardly pays attention to. Things he knows the dogs can’t understand but makes him smile a little bit anyways. They’re friends, Connor thinks. They aren’t close, but he likes to think they can be considered more than acquaintances. His relationship with Tina isn’t like what her relationship with Gavin is, but he can only assume that from what he gathers at work. Snippets of conversations about them going to clubs together, meeting up at bars and joking about their most recent sexual partners because their relationships with people outside of each other mean nothing. They’re best friends. That’s all they really, truly care about. He’s heard the two of them comment enough on not wanting to date that he’s assumed one night stands are the preferred method of gratification.

It’s far weirder than Connor’s relationship with Hank. Not quite a father-figure but not quite a friend. Something lying in between. Not that Connor would really know what a father-figure should be like. He thinks, maybe, the closest he ever could have for a father is Kamski, but even then, he is a creator, not a father. Relationships were much easier to understand when he was a machine. People in his life were designated by programs and protocols. Hank was Lieutenant Anderson. Distant. Co-worker. Nothing. He was meant to be nothing.

They live together now, even if Connor feels more like a burden than somebody that’s wanted there. But they work through it. Pretend that some of the things that happened before didn’t happen. Life—Hank having never pulled a gun on him, Hank having never pulled the trigger. Connor never laid bleeding and broken in the snow.

There are quite a few memories he lost. Dying again and again has that effect. Data that couldn’t be kept. He wishes that was one of the things he forgot.

“Connor? Are you alright?”

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

“About?” she asks, tilting her head, looking up at him with an expression that tells him she’s concerned.

“I—” he shrugs, sifts through his head for a lie. “Gavin.”

“Oh?” her lips quirk into a small smile. “You wish he was here?”

“No,” Connor replies quickly. “Not at all. We don’t exactly get along.”

“Yeah,” she says, straightening up. “He’s always had a bad way of expressing how he feels.”

“I thought it was rather clear when he killed me.”

“I can’t comment on that, Con,” Tina says with a small shrug. “But I can say that he does avoid you in conversation. Whenever I bring you up… he does his best to pretend you don’t exist.”

“Tina—”

“He’s only ever done that with two other people,” she says. “His brother and his last boyfriend.”

Connor goes silent, looking away from her to the dogs, trying his best to keep his expression blank. He doesn’t know what to do with that information. Where he would rather lie on the spectrum of Gavin’s relationships and how he deals with them or how he would like Gavin to feel about him. If he’d prefer being something of a brotherly friend or—

“It’s late,” Connor says quickly. “Th-The sun is starting to set. I think… we should go. We should—”

“Connor,” she says, and her hand rests gently on his shoulder and he has to hold back on his desire to flinch away. “All I’m saying is that he doesn’t hate you. He likes you a lot more than you think he does. He’ll never admit it, but… just don’t… worry, okay?”

[ID: Tina by the window with Cappuccino beside her, looking out towards the street below.]

**GAYVIN-GREED ** — just a girl and her cat ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

posted **JANUARY 16, 2040**

**tina_tot** glad yr finally admitting cappi is mine ¡¡¡( •̀ ᴗ •́ )و!!!

| **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot (◕⌓◕;)

——————————

“So…”

“So?”

“How was your date with robo-boy?”

He watches Tina shift, a small smile spreading across her face as she curls her legs up close to her chest, “Jealous much?”

“Fuck no. Just curious.”

_ Idiot _. He never should have brought it up. Bringing it up opens the floodgates for Tina to start acting like he’s some kind of a child with a crush on a stupid android boy that’s not even the slightest bit attractive nor obtainable.

“It was nice,” she says. “We talked about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. He said you were… let me see if I remember right. Stupid?”

“He didn’t call me stupid,” Gavin replies, narrowing his eyes at her. “You’re such a fucking liar.”

“No, he didn’t, but when I mentioned that you liked him—”

“I’ll fucking kill you.”

“—he seemed a little pleased.”

Gavin shakes his head, moving away from her to pretend he’s paying attention to a message on his phone despite the notifications cleared and empty.

He doesn’t like Connor. He can’t. He can’t allow himself to. There is too much between them for him to fix. Too much to clean up and resolve to move beyond a friendly level. It’s not even just regarding their relationship and what Gavin has done and how he treated Connor–it’s himself, too. All of the trauma in his past can’t be taken out and dissected in a year. It can’t be repaired and put back away again. It can’t be replaced with the concept of someone possibly loving him. It just isn’t possible. It’s hopeless and useless and–

“I think he likes you, too,” Tina says quietly, interrupting his thoughts. “I think if you weren’t such a stubborn dickhead, you might actually see that. He’s kinder than you think he is.”

“Kind enough to forgive someone for killing him?”

“He forgave Hank. You don’t think he could even consider forgiving you?”

Gavin shakes his head, not just dismissing the idea of this but dismissing the entire conversation. He can’t get into it. If he gets into it, then things will start to lead somewhere he doesn’t want it to go. Get too personal for his taste.

It just doesn’t matter anymore. He’s made his decision. He isn’t going back on it. Not anymore.

**JANUARY 18, 2040**

Connor doesn’t know how to act now. Tina has ruined him with their little conversation. Turning his everyday routine of avoiding Gavin, of smothering responses to his mediocre insults, to thinking he knows where he stands as a person in Gavin’s life, in a complete one-eighty.

Connor isn’t an idiot. He knew for the most part, Gavin was faking how much he despised Connor. It was easy to see that the problem between them was initiated by a fear of replacement. Something Connor is well versed in. And he knows it’s an issue Gavin wouldn’t be able to get over or understand very easily based on his past.

And he hates that. He hates knowing so much about Gavin. It’s imbalanced, just like it was with Hank before. It didn’t matter if Connor divulged every last thing about himself. It would never make up for that fact he stepped into their lives knowing about the things they’ve dealt with. Important information gifted to him to assimilate better into their lives. Use his knowledge of Gavin’s traumatic childhood and suicidal behaviors to exploit him into doing whatever it would take to accomplish a mission.

Every single person in the station has something in their past they don’t want to talk about. All of those facts have been accumulated into his head. Death and destruction attached to each one of them.

Chris’ wife had a miscarriage five years ago. Tina’s boyfriend in high school tried to kill her. Hank lost his son. Fowler’s three daughters were all murdered on Halloween night. Ben’s husband has cancer. Gavin’s mother committed suicide the same way he tried to kill himself when he was seventeen.

Connor never forgets what he wants to forget. It stays and it lingers, telling him again and again how he could push a conversation to go a different direction. Get in a position of power over the others. All it would take is mentioning something while pretending to be completely unaware. Throw them off. Hurt them. It’s what CyberLife wanted him to do. Use Cole’s death to hurt Hank again and again if he got in the way. Exploit his young face and naive personality to fill in as a make-shift son.

He’s glad it didn’t work, but knowing these things and being who he is has left him in a precarious position.

_ Be a little kinder than you have to. _ Make up for all the cruel things he did before. He can manage that. He can do that. He _ wants _this. Even if he thought Gavin hated him before, even if he was convinced that Gavin didn’t like him, he would’ve extended a small smile, let the insults be thrown. None of them phase him. None of the mean comments or expressions have ever really hurt him.

And he can see it—what Tina said. That Gavin likes him. Treats him in a different way than the others. Connor can see when he says something to Hank, he wants it to cut deep. He can see that the jokes he makes with and about Tina and Chris, that they are supposed to be friendly. But the ones with Connor lie in another manner. Said in a voice a little too harsh for the ridiculous words that are strung together.

Different.

_ Brother or boyfriend? _

Connor is well aware of what he’d prefer.

[ID: A coffee shop crowded with people, one of them being Gavin at the counter,

reaching out to take his cup from the barista.]

**TINA_TOT** — with @gayvin-greed 且_(＾-＾)

posted** JANUARY 21, 2040 **

——————————

It’s been exactly four hundred and eighty-one days since it happened. A few months before Connor appeared at the DPD. Just before his birthday. Another year telling him what a fucking worthless piece of shit he is. How fucking terrible and awful and cruel he is. Reminding Gavin he’s wasted another year of his life doing absolutely fucking nothing except burden the people around him.

A bottle of pills washed down with alcohol. Easy. He always thought it sounded nice—falling asleep and never waking again. It was also one of his worst fears. _ He _ had to be the one to do it. It had to be _ his _ decision. Sometimes he would hit his head on something and he worried that irreparable brain damage had been done and he wouldn’t be able to write the last words he wanted to say. A letter to Tina and a letter to Chris. Folded up neatly and set on his dresser beside a suicide note. His plan. _ A bottle of pills washed down with alcohol. _ Fall asleep into the dim blackness and wake up somewhere that the weight of living wasn’t so heavy upon his shoulders.

Tina found him. Had a key because she so frequently came to visit. She hadn’t been over in months. She had a girlfriend, then. Someone nice and happy that she had to break up with because Gavin was, as he always is, a burden in her life. She’d come to his house on a coincidence, mostly, he thinks. She said it was because he wasn’t answering her texts or calls, which he thinks is fair. He was always someone that obsessively responded too fast. Felt like a freak because his hands were always so quick to grab the phone and respond. Even in the shower, he would grab his phone from where it sat and respond, leaning out from the curtains and typing a response as the water turned cold on his back.

It was good timing on her part. He saw the message when he came home. Gavin had set his phone aside, left it on the countertop while he made sure the cat’s food and water were filled, made sure she wasn’t hiding under his bed with any toys so that at least they could be separated from his dead body. It was thirty minutes from when he saw the text and when he shut and locked the door. It was an hour when he had finished writing the suicide note and started taking the pills. It was only ten minutes later when the apartment door opened, when she found him lying there.

It was two days after that she broke up with her girlfriend at the time because she chose Gavin over her.

A stupid, stupid mistake.

And months that followed of her being overly cautious. Staying the night and only leaving to check on Mac. Sometimes smuggling her dog into his apartment and shushing him late at night when she locked up the knives and lighters and anything that she deemed anywhere plausible to be a suicide weapon. She slept in the bed beside him—not an unusual thing for the two of them, but it was different. Her body rigid and tense, waking up at the smallest of movement, thinking he was going to slip away to the bathroom to drown himself in the tub or leave for the kitchen and stick his head in the oven.

Gavin wasn’t going to kill himself in those following months.

But he wanted to.

He still does.

Tina doesn’t pretend that it never happened. They still have moments where he might joke a little too negatively and she’ll look at him with a vague mix of annoyance and anger and absolute and total agony. He doesn’t get it. She should be happy if he were to disappear. Her life would be so much easier. No more checking in at random hours or asking him how he’s doing. She wouldn’t have to deal with how heavy his emotions can get. He knows how taxing of a person he is, how unwanted he is. How much easier life would be if he simply didn’t exist at all.

And him?

It would even be easier for him. _ The easy route. _ Isn’t that what people always refer to suicide as? Gavin wouldn’t have to deal with how hard it is to suffer from emotions or explain them. He wouldn’t have to deal with the days when he suddenly remembers how much he hates himself, stripping it down to the bare aesthetics or the deep valleys of his repulsive personality. He wouldn’t have to deal with his own crushing loneliness and the knowledge that if anybody loves him, if they are capable of convincing themselves of that much delusion, that it would never last long. He is not somebody that stays in people’s lives for very long at all.

Who would want him around?

_ No one. _

And the thing about it is—

He hates himself the most for why he did it. Why when Tina stopped talking to him, when she got a girlfriend and her time was spent with her, when she wasn’t there to distract himself from his thoughts, they crept back in and overtook more than anything. When he remembers that the reason he tried to kill himself was the crushing loneliness of feeling his best friend slip away, it feels like blaming Tina for having a life outside of him.

He knows he can be a dependent person.

He hates himself for it. This is nobody’s fault but his own.

And Gavin thinks, maybe, that’s why he hates that he lived. Because everyday Tina is watching him carefully, sacrificing parts of her life to keep him afloat when she shouldn’t have to. He thinks that’s why he still thinks about how much he needs to try again and get it right this time.

Then Tina won’t have to worry anymore.

He’ll be gone and she’ll be relieved.

Before he thought it was as simple as quitting the DPD and letting their friendship fall through the cracks, but he knows it’s not enough. Tina is a good friend. She won’t let him go.

Gavin wishes she would.

[ID: A picture of hamburger and fries from Chicken Feed.]

**LT.SUMO ** — @the_chicken_feed 

posted **JANUARY 22, 2040 **

**connor_rk800** (╬ Ò ‸ Ó)

——————————

He worries about Hank. Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he doesn’t have a right to. They’re friends. As close as Connor thinks they can get. Repairing the damage of someone murdering him isn’t exactly easy, but he’s never found it that simple to call what happened to him _ murder. _He doesn’t consider it that way. He’s still alive. He’s still here. He came back. All of his thoughts and all of his memories exist within a body still. Although, that isn’t necessarily true, is it? He doesn’t remember everything. There are things in his head that were emptied out in between. Things that weren’t considered useful or necessary enough for him to keep. Saving a cop at the Phillips’ residence is the only thing he knew he lost before he deviated. There were gaps that Hank helped fill him in on after the fact. Pieces of evidence that were scattered across the black void of whatever it was he existed in. Clinging to the body instead of coming with him.

_ Gone. _

Like Connor should be.

But he still has a Thirium regulator. His heart is still beating. He can still think and feel. He is still alive, regardless of whatever he lost before.

Maybe he is simply looking for excuses to not hold what happened to him against Hank. He cares for him. He knows Hank was drunk. He knows that he was still grieving the loss of a child. He knows how hard all of it was. The need to lash out at someone, an android, that took a life. It’s fine. It’s understandable. If it weren’t for Hank putting a bullet in his head, maybe he would still have the scar in his palm or his shoulder where the WR400 stabbed him with the screwdriver. Maybe his face would be dented where she hit him with the metal tray. Maybe Connor wouldn’t even be a deviant now. Maybe he would’ve remained a machine.

Maybe, sometimes, he is thankful for the fact that Hank killed him on the bridge. When he looks back, when he thinks about the two of them, their arguing and the little pieces of anger that formed inside of Connor’s chest and surged to the surface, he knows it was the first time he felt emotion. The annoyance that Hank wanted him to beg for a life. The disgust he felt at the thought maybe if he got on his knees and clasped his hands together, Hank would spare him his life when it meant so little.

It was mostly after, though.

Stratford Tower is not a place he wants to return to. High up off the ground, a cop thanking him for a life saved, the aftermath of being murdered only to be killed again. A regulator tossed aside so carelessly. He can still feel the ghost of a knife in his hand. The pain vibrating outwards. Soft, sometimes, at first. Almost gentle. Like a person tracing the shape that would’ve been left on the plastic of his palm. And then agonizingly deep. Scratching. Itching. The need to pull back his skin, a desire to almost drive a knife through it again just to realize the pain beyond a memory.

It is all these tiny things that haunt him more than anything else. He doesn’t remember killing the Tracis in great detail but he remembers firing a gun and he remembers rain on his face and he remembers the way Hank looked at him. Fragments stuck in the back of his mind. Fragments of things he should remember.

All leading up to this—

Who they are now.

Whatever hope CyberLife had for Connor being able to manipulate Hank into someone that would work for them died the second Hank pulled the trigger. Everything else Hank could excuse, but that moment was enough. Enough to know that Connor was a machine that would do anything it took. Enough that he was willing to pay CyberLife millions to repair the damage he caused hours later. Enough to fracture a line of defense they had so carefully crafted.

He thinks they intended for his ability to come back as nothing more than stepping from one body to the next. Something useful for when criminals fired back at him. He doesn’t think they ever meant or intended for his ability to upload memories and data into a new Connor could work to creating the very thing they sought to destroy.

So, yes, sometimes he is glad Hank killed him.

Sometimes, like now, Connor is terrified that it ruined them. They live together. Have for over a year. Ever since November 11th, when Markus won. Raising that flag high above his head in victory, words spilling out of his mouth in a victorious speech as Connor came back with his army of freed androids and the first positive feeling he think he ever had. Growing in his stomach. Happiness, maybe. Pride, unlikely. Content, he thinks. Victorious. He isn’t good with words. He doesn’t understand emotions, even after a year of having them shoved towards him, even after he welcomed them gratefully.

What a fool he was then.

How glad he _ still _is.

He thinks the only way he could be unhappier now is if he’d remained a machine underneath CyberLife’s control, as ironic as that is. Being devoid of emotions would be worse than ever feeling them too much. He would rather have this pain and this guilt and this worry taking over his life than to be numb to it all. The numbness was terrifying. Even on the nights he wakes up crying and suffocating screams, he would rather have that pressing weight on his lungs than to feel nothing at all. He’d rather value his life and know his mortality than to have nothing and be so willing to let it go.

In the last year, him and Hank have walked on eggshells. Carefully getting more and more comfortable. Letting the ice-cold water turn lukewarm. They are not best friends, but Connor still worries about him. He still asks if AA is going alright. He still asks if the therapy Hank is attending is working. If Hank is improving. They are carefully disguised questions, something Connor got good at in the months after the revolution, especially on New Year's Eve when the party they attended to, against Connor’s wishes, was filled with drunken celebrations. Asking Hank if he’s okay without saying it outright. He got better answers then. More truthful ones. If he ever asked Hank directly if he was okay, he would get a very solid and very angry _ I’m fine _ in response. But if he asked if Hank would like a glass of water or something as trivial as that, he was likely to get a more truthful _ yes, please, help. _ They’d left the party early on New Years after Connor very carefully worded his question of _ Do you want to go? _ as _ I’d like to leave early to work on some paperwork, can you drive me? _

But even now, even after living in Hank’s house through the rage and the tears and the relapse and the meetings and the recovery—

Connor does not fully consider them friends.

He thinks of himself like a rat, living in the attic and walls of Hank’s house. Hank knows he’s there, knows the mouse is stealing food and making nests, but he does nothing to get rid of it. Allows him to exist because it’s easier than getting him out. Maybe it could be considered an act of kindness on Hank’s part. Connor thinks it is. He thinks Hank lets him stay here because he feels too guilty about killing Connor to kick him out.

And, Connor cleans.

Scrubs the counters and the dishes and the floors. Makes every inch of the place spotless. Dusts the books and rearranges them alphabetically like Hank asks. Makes the bed every morning and brings in the mail. Helps shred the things that Hank doesn’t want going into the trash. Takes out the recycling, mows the lawn, washes the car.

He likes to clean and he likes to feel like his presence is useful rather than like a pest.

Although, Connor thinks rats are cute, so maybe he is more like a cockroach in Hank’s house instead. And someday Hank will call an exterminator.

In the end, Connor thinks of himself more like a maid and than a friend. Existing for the sole purpose of making Hank’s life a little easier in a separate way. So when he sees Hank post a picture on his Instagram feed, as trivial and tiny and inconsequential as it may seem, of food from the Chicken Feed, he cannot help but feel a sense of worry. Worry that even after Hank stopped drinking and started seeing a therapist that his health may deteriorate based on his less than balanced food diet. But he isn’t even sure if he’s allowed to worry. They joke and they laugh but who is _ Connor _ to _ Hank Anderson? _

A son?

A maid?

A friend?

All of the above?

Nothing?

_ Nothing. _

His body weighs heavy, sinking him further down, trying his best to react funny. An angry little emoji to align with how often he teases, sometimes serious and sometimes playful, about Hank’s eating habits. Stocking the fridge with veggies and fruits. Cutting them up at night, assembling little lunchboxes for the next day of work. Keeping an eye on what is being eaten and what isn’t. Taking note of Hank’s likes and dislikes, adjusting accordingly.

Maybe he isn’t a maid or a friend or a son. Maybe he isn’t _ nothing _ . Maybe he is just Hank’s chef. He doesn’t know the proper word for it. It sits on the tip of his tongue. Diet coordinator? No. It doesn’t sound right. He feels fear strike through him, tears prick at his eyes. _ He doesn’t know the word. _He isn’t even sure if there is a real word for it but he feels that there is. He feels an empty space in his head. Somewhere that the word used to be that was left empty. Not like it was gouged out, just like a ghost, lingering there, taunting him.

_ He doesn’t know the word. _

And it makes him want to scream.

[ID: Latte laying on a glass table–the photo is taken underneath, showing how her paws and her face are smushed against the glass. ]

**TINA_TOT** — ฅ(˘ω˘ )ฅ

posted** JANUARY 25, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** you never take a flattering picture of her

| **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed she’s a cat all pictures of her are flattering you coward

——————————

It’s a good day. The first one in a long time. He is smiling without feeling guilty. He’s laughing at Tina’s stupid jokes. He teases her that she’s torturing the cats when she pulls little sweaters from her bags for them and wrestles them in. Latte, fighting for her life, long fur matted underneath the bright blue knit, the rest sticking up wild like a mane. Cappuccino, closing her eyes immediately, going back to sleep like it never bothered her to begin with.

It’s a good day–despite everything else.

**JANUARY 27, 2040**

Tina told him something today, when they were at the park together, that made him think. When the dogs were running around, when Sumo seemed to have more energy than he usually does. People walking by, kids racing across the snow to get to the playground equipment. She’d been talking about her mother—her stepmother, really. How she’d went to visit the week before. It was a story just told to fill the space between them. The quiet that had settled in. Trying to keep the conversation going because neither of them really wanted it to end, because then they’d be hopeless to start it back up once more. She’d pulled the sleeves of her coat up, showed the edges of her white shirt underneath, stained with a purplish-brown. Dye from when she’d gone to vist her stepmother. How she would buy the boxed dye and have Tina come to visit to rid her hair of the gray and white that kept growing in. Turning it back to the soft brown a few shades lighter than her own. The conversation had shifted from just about the topic of how she couldn’t get the dye out of her shirt and to the topic of the things her mother did to keep herself from aging. They weren’t things that Tina frowned on, just things that people did. Botox and hair dye and using skin creams.

It was strange—

Because Tina had suddenly gone quiet, her voice lowering, speaking more to herself than to Connor but he had heard every word of it.

The tiny fractured sentences about how when she was a teenager, she was the same. Obsessing over face masks and makeup and making sure when she was forty, she didn’t look it. But when she was in college, things had changed. She stopped caring. She didn’t think she would even make it to forty, so what was the point in trying to preemptively smooth away the wrinkles in her skin and avoid from smiling too much because the laugh lines would make her age faster? Who cared about avoiding the bright sun who would damage it?

She hadn’t said it in so many words, but he knew. Knew that she was a little bit like Gavin, only she wasn’t to such an extreme. Tina never sought out death, she was just waiting for it. Waiting and beckoning for it but never actively acting upon her thoughts.

Tina had stopped suddenly, looking up to him, as though she could read his thoughts, know that she was making a connection between her and her best friend, “You know about him, don’t you? Gavin? What he tried to do just before you came here?”

He nodded, because there was little point in lying about it. What would he gain from pretending he didn’t know that Gavin had tried to kill himself? Still, he regretted it the instant he had admitted to it. He never wanted people to know how much information he knew about them. He’d rather them tell him on their own volition. It felt more trustworthy. Like he’d earned the right to know it and be able to comment on it. But he could see the flicker of fear and regret that passed across her face the instant she had spoken the question. Her regret that she had told him something he didn’t deserve to know, her relief that she hadn’t spilled a secret she was trusted to keep.

“Nobody else does,” she whispers. “Not the extent of it. I lied for him. A lot. I don’t know if anyone believed me, but they don’t know the truth so I think…”

“People accept what they want to hear.”

Tina nods, looking back to him. “It’s weird… me. I’m… I feel strange thinking about it. It feels like… like everything I felt was fake because I never did anything. Does that make any sense? I know it’s selfish. I know it’s wrong but—I never tried to…”

“You don’t have to hit rock bottom to have your pain be real.”

She sighs and offers him a small smile, “You sound like my therapist. You ever think about believing that when it comes to yourself?”

He shakes his head, tries to brush her off. Connor isn’t very fond of the idea of Tina knowing everything that lurks beneath the surface. She is fun and happy and jokes. He doesn’t like the concept that he is something that brings her down. Having her know about how much he’s suffering inside. He wouldn’t tell her anything. He wouldn’t go to her if he hurt. He wouldn’t want to ruin that. She seems so—

_ Light _.

And Connor can understand why Gavin wouldn’t have called her that night. Why he went through with it. He never gave her the chance to talk him out of it.

He’s assuming things. Putting puzzle pieces together for something he doesn’t have the picture for. They could go anywhere and he is pressing them together as if he knows anything at all. Life is never that easy.

“You want to know something?” Tina asks him, and he nods, because she has a small smile on her face again. The kind that makes her look pleased with herself. A pure kind of happiness. “I get it. I get the need to make yourself not look as old as you are. But I don’t think… I don’t think I can wait until my hair turns gray and my skin gets wrinkles. It just feels like a badge of honor now, in a way. Happy that I’ve lived long enough to show my age, you know?”

He nods, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand at all. He won’t age. His body might accumulate dents and scratches on it, but it will be like a human getting scars and not even necessarily the same then—his own will be covered up by fake skin. Nobody will ever even see them unless he takes it away, and he can’t imagine letting anyone see his body that way. It feels too personal. Not like being naked. More than that. Shedding a layer that would protect his soul and not just his dignity.

What does he know about a soul or dignity, though?

He thinks about Hank. Thinks about his gray and white hair. Thinks about the wrinkles on his face. How he’s aged. Fowler, too. Even Amanda—even if she wasn’t real. He’ll be stuck forever like this. So will the YK500s. He wonders how they feel, being stuck as a child forever. He wonders if someday, the androids will figure out a way to transfer their consciousness to new bodies without having to sacrifice little bits and pieces like Connor had to.

He hopes so. He hopes that they get to keep everything they want.

“Tina?” he says, moving over to her, reaching out to touch the side of her face. “I think you’ve got a wrinkle right here already. Maybe you _ are _getting old.”

She laughs, bats his hand away, “You’ll have to start respecting me, then. I know we look the same age but I am older than you—remember that. Respective your elders, little shit.”

Connor smiles, pocketing his hands again, looking back to Sumo stomping around in the snow and Mac biting at the piles along the side of the path. It’s strange, Tina reminding him how young he is. He doesn’t feel like a baby, even if he is only a few years old. Maybe it is all the grief and the guilt. Maybe it’s the programming, giving him access to a maturity he hasn’t earned. 

**JANUARY 28, 2040**

Connor is sitting on the other side of Chris’ desk, a book propped open in his lap. He flips through the pages slowly, waiting for his friend to come into work. It seems strange, calling Chris a friend. They don’t talk outside of the few moments they have here. But sometimes he allows himself to call people by the wrong word. He feels a little bit better when he refers to a coworker as a friend. It makes him feel more well-rounded. Tricks him into feeling a little less lonely.

Chris isn’t here, but Gavin is. Sitting so close to him. The two glance back and forth at each other before eventually, Connor feels something hit the side of his head. A light hit before the paper ball tumbles down into his lap.

“You write a note in here?” Connor asks, bending to pick it up where it fell between his feet.

“No,” Gavin replies, lowering his voice. “Keep quiet. Tina’s asleep.”

Connor looks over his shoulder towards Tina. Her arms crossed, head buried in them. He didn’t register it before, but he nods slowly in understanding and he flattens the paper out across his book, taking a pen and writing down inside of it before folding it back up carefully. A neat little football that he can flick over to Gavin’s desk.

“Passing notes like teenage girls?” Gavin whispers.

“Ssh,” Connor replies. “Don’t wake the girl.”

He watches Gavin roll his eyes, unfolding the page, writing a note back to him. He doesn’t fold it like Connor did. Instead, forming it into a ball again, tossing it back at him. They continue like this, passing messages back and forth. Connor trying his best to flick the paper football into Gavin’s face, managing it almost every time. Gavin failing at folding it and always resorting to crumpling the paper beyond recognition, making the words inside hard to read.

Connor is a little disappointed when Chris finally comes into work, taking a seat at his desk and readying for a deep discussion on the last book they picked to read together. Gavin’s note sits tucked inside of his book, set carefully down at the edge of his desk before he leaves to return to his work before Fowler gets on their case.

He doesn’t get a response. He has to wonder if Gavin even ever read it to begin with.

**JANUARY 28, 2040**

C: _ Why is Tina so tired? _

G: _ Late night drinking. _

C: _ And you? Why aren’t you as tired as she is? _

G: _ I didn’t go with. _

C: _ Thought you were the bad influence, not here. _

G: _ All this time you still think i’m some kind of drunken idiot, huh? _

C: _ Drunken no, idiot… yes. _

G: _ Thanks. I’m not as stupid as everyone thinks I am. _

C: _ Prove it. _

G: _ How? _

C: _ Take me out drinking with you. It’ll be fun. _

G: _ You’re an android. You can’t drink. You can’t get drunk. _

C: _ I still want to spend time with you. See you make a fool of yourself outside of work. It’ll be fun. _

**JANUARY 28, 2040**

“I hate him.”

“You don’t hate him. You _ wish _you hated him.”

Gavin reaches up and covers his face, hiding as much as he can, feeling the skin of his cheeks turn hot like he’s some kind of child that would blush over a schoolgirl crush. He’s an adult. He tells himself that on a daily basis and yet he’s still here, thinking of Connor and the potential, the possibility that if they got together, would it change anything?

Would he still want to give up on his life? Would he still go on living like this?

Maybe. He doesn’t know. Someone loving him isn’t going to change his suicidal ideation. It isn’t going to take away his desire to end his own life. But it could, too, he thinks. If he allows himself to dig a little deeper than the surface.

He is aware that one of the reasons he wants to be gone from this place is how much of a burden he is unto others. How much other people don’t want him around. How unlovable he feels. If somebody came into his life, especially someone like Connor, somebody he hurt, and they not only forgave him but fell in love with him?

It would prove to him that some tiny part of his insides are worth saving. Some part of him is worth keeping around. Some part of him is wanted.

Another person shouldn’t prove that, but he wouldn’t believe it otherwise, either.

Gavin knows it’s fucked up and wrong but he can’t help it. He can’t help but thinking that this is what he wants. Someone to love him. It wouldn’t solve shit but it might help him start to dissect the equation to figure out the solution. It might give him the little bit of hope to pay attention to things Tina keeps pushing in front of his face. Therapists and medications and people who would listen and help him.

_ Tina. _

He knows it should be her. He knows her presence should be the person he’s looking for. How many times has she told him she loves him? That she would kill him if anything happened to him? That he means the world to her? How many times has he returned those sentiments?

He loves her. She is his best friend. He would do anything for her and she would do anything for him.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

If he had succeeded when he tried to kill himself, she might be happy right now. She wouldn’t have sacrificed her relationship to help him. She wouldn’t be here beside him, making jokes about asking a boy out.

He killed Connor. It’s the only thing that matters anymore. Everything else is a moot point. It doesn’t matter if Gavin is going to kill himself by the end of the year. Their relationship would never last. It doesn’t matter if Gavin is a piece of shit that was never worth keeping around to begin with. It doesn’t matter if he’s lovable or not.

He killed Connor.

That, he thinks, is unforgivable.

But she is right.

Gavin doesn’t hate him. He wishes he did. There is something else inside of his chest that he wants to call love but he keeps suffocating it again and again because the idea of being in love with someone he tries to avoid as much as Gavin does seems impossible and stupid and reckless to label as such.

He’s infatuated with Connor. He’s attracted to him. There’s little else. He has to keep reminding himself that. Connor is a good person and it would take anyone in the world to realize that he’d make a good boyfriend. That doesn’t mean his other half can be someone like Gavin.

“Not this Valentine’s day, but the next,” Gavin says, knowing he’ll never make it that far. “If he’s still at the DPD I’ll write him a love letter.”

“Hopeless romantic,” Tina says with a small smile. “You should get a head start on it now.”

“So you can steal it and send it early? No way.”

“Fuck. You caught me. But you know you can’t keep waiting around, right?” she says, leaning towards him. “Connor is a catch. Someone will swoop him up.”

Someone better than Gavin, but it isn’t a hard feat to manage.

“If he’s truly my soulmate, he’ll be single.”

“Thought you didn’t believe in fate?”

Gavin shrugs, trying to let this conversation end and die off, “Didn’t believe androids could have souls before Markus proved everyone wrong.”

“Fair,” she says, curling up on the couch. “Maybe that’s who Connor will date.”

“Markus?”

“Yeah,” she says. “They’d make a great pair.”

Gavin clenches his jaw, tightening his hands around his drink, “Yeah. Perfect.”

He glances over to Tina, watches the satisfied look on her face. He’s never fully admitted his feelings for Connor. Not to anyone, barely even to himself. Tina can see it plain as day because she’s smart and knows Gavin too well, but he’s never outright confirmed her beliefs. Joked about them countless times, denied and denied and denied, but tell her that he thinks he might love the android boy worth millions?

No.

Never.

But this moment is enough proof to fuel her antics for another century.

**JANUARY 30, 2040**

It’s cold outside. Connor knows that. Temperature doesn’t affect them in the way it would affect a human. He has readings that tells him it’s in the negatives. Too cold for him to be out here. Cold enough that there’s programming in his body telling him to get inside where it’s warm. But he waits in the car by himself, head leaned against the window, cool glass against his forehead as though that would soothe his headache.

He’s been sitting here for a while now, shivering and shaking and his fingertips turning blue and numb. Although, it is hard to say whether or not that’s a true feeling either. His body is meant to replicate how a human would deal with hypothermia, an extra warning for him to get somewhere else. An effect on him that would be more easily understood and more difficult to ignore than a warning sign that pops up at the bottom of his vision. He shoves it away again and again, looking out to the street.

He can’t go inside. He’s remembering things and forgetting others. Hank’s house is right there, Sumo probably waiting for him on the other side. They came back from work two hours ago, Hank disappearing to shower and sleep, Connor staying behind because he had lied and said he would bring the groceries sitting in the backseat inside. He hasn’t moved. He’s stuck, remembering the first time the streets were dusted with white. It wasn’t this cold. Connor remembers the bridge and he remembers the gun and he remembers dying, but he has never tied this type of weather with that moment.

Maybe because, as he always finds he is, sometimes he is grateful that Hank killed him. Broke a bit of his walls down to get him to who he is, even if he would prefer his deviancy a little less painful. He wonders if he had made different choices—better choices—if he would be happy now.

Connor _ is _happy.

Sometimes.

It’s hard for him to understand. Sometimes he’s happy. He can laugh and he can smile. It’s just more complex than those fleeting moments. He thinks the ones that determine how happy he is with his life are the ones where he’s sitting alone. In a car, in the cold, watching the street. Watching it pile higher and higher.

_ It. _

He forgot the name. Of the stuff falling from the sky. Little white flakes. Water, but not water. Not ice. Something else.

He can’t remember the name of it.

Connor tries to distract himself. Changing his tactic. No longer sifting through as much data in his head trying to find the lost word but instead trying to find a way to allow it to sneak back in. Not something lost forever, just temporarily. It’ll come back.

_ Won’t it? _

He can feel the pressure of tears, the need to cry. He shoves it back. Feels his throat close up. He doesn’t like how he was programmed. He doesn’t like that his emotions seem to be tied to feelings that he shouldn’t experience. Pain shouldn’t be something he feels. He shouldn’t understand that the feeling in his stomach when he sees Gavin is _ butterflies _ and what that must mean for their relationship. He doesn’t like the stinging of tears or the strange rawness in his throat or even feeling the absolute need to breathe even though it’s not necessary. But it _ feels _like it is. Every unconscious action—blinking, breathing, shifting his weight—it feels necessary. It feels like a requirement. He does it without thinking most times. Moving into a position that’s a little more comfortable, rubbing at his eyes when he first wakes. Little things. Little things that he shouldn’t need.

He’s seen other androids do it, but it’s a rare few. A tiny number. Most androids don’t. Most androids don’t really dream. He knows because he scoured the internet in hopes of trying to understand pieces of himself. Keeping himself distant and far away, trying not to ever make anything too real by putting his own experiences out for people to dissect and respond to. He couldn’t do that. He can’t manage that. But he can see the numbers of androids saying that they don’t dream at all—or if they do, they’re memories. Played to the exact way they had been when first experienced. Not like others, not like him. Not dreams that are a little bit off or so convoluted he doesn’t understand how it happened.

Dreams with humans are born out of imagination but his feel like an alternate path he never took. A peek into another reality. Ones where he is more brutal, ones where he is more passive. It’s like torture. Telling him what could have been. Sometimes soothing in the sense that he never fell down a path of being a ruthless machine but also entirely knowing how capable he was. They are comforting for a fleeting moment before reminding him that he was very, very close to being that person, and it only reaffirms the guilt weighing in his chest.

_ Snow. _

It’s snow. The stuff falling from the sky. Powdery, piling up. The roads will be terrible. The beauty of the white blanket, the way it almost glitters against the light, won’t last long. The cars will turn it to slush. People’s footprints will crush it down. It’ll be shoveled and ruined. But for now, the snow lays in a perfectly flat blanket across the yard.

Connor pushes the door open, closes it behind him, nothing keeping him from going inside anymore.

The groceries are heavy in his arms, but he is careful not to squash the bread or the bananas on his way in. He hears the sound of Sumo barking as he pushes the door open. When he glances back, he looks at his footprints in the snow. The first to ruin the beauty of it. _ Of course. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [chibi](https://teh-chibi.tumblr.com/) and [tay](https://same-side.tumblr.com/) for helping come up with usernames!!!  
+[art by kuinshi!](https://kuinshi.tumblr.com/post/188321356001/it-is-going-to-hurt-but-gavin-kisses-him-anyway)


	2. February

[ID: A coffee cup sitting on a wooden table.

It’s unclear whether or not it was taken at a cafe or Gavin’s apartment.]

**GAYVIN-GREED ** — (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)

posted  **FEBRUARY 1, 2040 **

**connor_rk800** You shouldn’t drink so much coffee, Detective Reed. 

| ** gayvin-greed** @connor_rk800 fuck off

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed Is that your catch phrase? ( ｡_｡)

|  **gayvin-greed** @connor_rk800 fuck! Off!!

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed I’ll take that as a yes. ◔̯◔

——————————

Gavin was aware of Connor’s Instagram account. Something insignificant that pressed on the back of his mind whenever he saw Tina leaning over her phone with a smile and showing him a picture of a stupid fucking tree or something. Birds on powerlines or squirrels running across grass. Who gives a fuck. It annoyed him, knowing that the two of them were becoming friends. They already were, a little bit, before. A year of the two of them having conversations. Tiny things. Small talk. Shit that Gavin couldn’t care less about and he doesn’t say that from a place of jealousy—there was simply other things on his mind. Things he needed to arrange for the future, or, his lack of one. He didn’t care.

But then Connor commented on his post.  _ You shouldn’t drink so much coffee, Detective Reed. _

What a little bitch.

He hates him.

Gavin hates him.

But he clicks on his username and finds the locked account, a little icon of trees with the sun streaming between them. Not like the icon that Tina has, which is of her and Cappuccino wearing matching sunglasses. Not like Gavin’s, where his face is mostly hidden by the cup of coffee, the scar on his nose obscured by hours spent in photoshop blurring it away. Even now he can’t stand it. Every time he looks in the mirror he wants to get rid of it. Every time he looks in the mirror he remembers how he got it. It goes hand in hand. He is never fully aware of whether or not the trigger is the scar or the mirror. One or the other. Maybe both.

The point remains:

Connor’s icon is not of himself. It’s just one picture, the only thing that Gavin can see, and it isn’t a photo of Connor. He doesn’t think of it so uncommon for people to not have selfies set as their icon—Hank’s isn’t. Hank’s is Sumo, looking happy and dopey just above where the camera is directed. Chris’ set to his wedding photo, but his and his wife’s body are silhouetted into shadows, not focused enough on their faces. There are other people he sees using celebrities, their pets, objects, even nature.

There is just something strange when he sees nothing for Connor’s but trees and leaves.

He’s cute. There is little reason to hide his face from the public.

But, Gavin supposes, he isn’t allowed to admit that. He isn’t allowed to admit that he thinks Connor is cute and he shouldn’t be stupid enough to think that someone who’s privatized their account cares if people see their face on their icon or not.

_ Shit. _ He wants to see what else Connor is posting. What mysterious images lurk behind that air-tight security Instagram has. How fucking useless. How fucking stupid.

But he steals Tina’s phone off her desk when she leaves for the bathroom. Types her password in that he memorized easily. A few years ago, like some kind of stupid new-age best friends necklace. Her half the broken heart: 69420, his own: 42069. Linking their phones like two stupid idiots that they are. But he laughs and he thinks of her when he unlocks his own in the middle of the night and sometimes that is enough to help remind him that someone cares about him. Most of the time it isn’t.

Gavin steals her phone and he types it in fast, going to her app and scrolling through her feed. Ignoring the large number of notifications and comments (he, of course, isn’t jealous at all) and finding Connor’s last post. A picture of the sidewalk. Snow and dirt. A shape drawn in the snow. A star, he thinks. can’t tell. Gavin doesn’t really care. He keeps telling himself that as he clicks through to Connor’s page, scrolls through the different pictures. The curiosity or the attraction or the possibility he could maybe use this as ammo in future insults that he prepares but never utilizes.

Maybe, and more likely, he just wants to know Connor. As stupid as it sounds. As worthless as it would be.

But he does.

“Gav?”

He looks up to Tina, fear and shame flooding through him, “Tina—”

“You took my phone?”

He nods, “Sorry.”

She stares at him for a moment and he wonders if she’ll yell. She should. She should be angry. Breaking her privacy and trust like that. He didn’t go through her private messages but it doesn’t make what he did any less cruel. Gavin’s apology was real but it wasn’t as real as it should have been.

“Give it back,” she says, her voice flat, quiet, and he does. Passing the phone to Tina’s hand, letting her look at the screen he left it on. A picture of Hank’s house. The curtains drawn back to get a view of the sunrise coming up over the houses on the opposite side of the street. He knows normally she would find amusement in something like that. An admission to an attraction that he keeps well hidden from everyone except her. But she doesn’t tease and she doesn’t joke. She just turns her screen off, pockets the phone, and doesn’t say another word to him for the rest of the day.

And like that, it is all over. The leeway she was giving him after he tried to kill himself. The things she let slide by. She won’t anymore. She never even should have to begin with.

Gavin never deserved that kindness, and he never will.

  
  


[ID: A photograph of Gavin on his motorcycle, looking towards Connor while flipping him off.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Edgy. ◔̯◔

posted ** FEBRUARY 4, 2040 **

**lt.sumo ** can’t believe you’d put this fucker on your page. you've made it 1000000x uglier now

|  **connor_rk800 ** @lt.sumo His face is covered. We’re safe.

|  **lt.sumo ** @connor_rk800 not covered enough

|  **gayvin-greed** @lt.sumo bitch

**gayvin-greed** (¬д¬。)

——————————

“Detective Reed—”

“You need something?” he asks. “I’m busy.”

He’s fast. Faster than Connor is—mostly because he knows if he tries to descend the steps in front of the station any faster, he’ll likely slip on the ice and fall. Gavin’s taking that risk, walking fast to where his motorcycle was left behind on the edge of the street, helmet in his hand. It surprises him for a moment—that Gavin wears one at all.

“I—” he takes another step forward. “You followed me.”

“I followed you?”

Connor takes his phone from his pocket, holds it up to him. It feels weird saying it out loud.  _ Instagram.  _ It’s just a social media website. Something he does for fun. He keeps the account private to keep people away. It’s not meant for them or the bots or the spam. It’s his thing, only allowed for close friends to look in on. He doesn’t want it to mean anything other than being his.

“Oh. Yeah. Curiosity killed the cat, yeah?”

“Satisfaction brought it back,” Connor replies.

“Doubtful that applies to now,” Gavin says. “You want something or do you just want me to know that you know I follow your precious account?”

“You’re speaking rather sarcastically for something you decided you wanted to see.”

“Want—?” Gavin forces out a laugh. “I just think Sumo’s cute. You should post more pictures of him.”

“Okay,” Connor replies. “You know I won’t follow you back, right?”

Gavin rolls his eyes, pulls his helmet on, holds up his middle finger. “Go fuck yourself, Connor.”

He shrugs, turns away from Gavin as the motorcycle starts up. Loud and obnoxious. Fitting that Gavin would have one. Not just for the noise factor but the faux-cool factor, too. Gavin’s fond of that leather jacket of his. Doesn’t matter how freezing it gets here, he’s always wearing it. Like he’s trying to prove something. 

  
  


[ID: Sumo looking rather doe-eyed into the camera.]

**LT.SUMO ** — Connor is teaching him it’s okay to beg

posted  **FEBRUARY 5, 2040 **

**connor_rk800** Look at him! He deserves it!

**connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed (￣▽￣)

——————————

  
Gavin looks at the picture and he smiles. And he doesn’t know why. If it was Tina, he’d be annoyed. He’d be frustrated that she would have tagged him on one of Hank’s post—or taken something that he had said yesterday and made a joke of it, even if it wasn’t entirely serious to begin with. But there’s something about Connor. Something that makes it different. Makes him respond in a way that brings a small smile to his face. That somebody had seen something and thought it important enough to share with him. Maybe he’s been desensitized to some things, can’t appreciate them anymore. Gavin still enjoys it when Tina sends him pictures of cats in windows of buildings she passes by or things she sees online. Maybe it’s just that it’s someone else. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s Connor. Maybe he’s just stupid and smiling because he misses the days when he was a kid and ran around the yard with a dog of his own and this feels like living vicariously through those days when he’d sneak away extra treats and sit in the dark with a dog as scared of his father’s yelling and screaming as he was.

He doesn’t know.

Gavin just knows he’s smiling, and he hasn’t done that in a long time. Not in the privacy of his home. Not when it wasn’t expected of him. Not when he didn’t need to do it to prove to someone that he’s happy. Stable.

He’s not.

  
  


[ID: Connor fixing his hair in the DPD bathroom mirror.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — this fucker always needs his hair to look perfect

posted  **FEBRUARY 8, 2040 **

**tina_tot ** i thought you said his hair looked stupid?

| ** gayvin-greed** @tina_tot it does. It’s perfectly fucking stupid.

**connor_rk800** Glad you took my advice.

| ** gayvin-greed** @connor_rk800 oh fuck off.

——————————

He spots Gavin in the corner of the mirror, watching him. He pretends for a moment like he doesn’t see him, but he gives it away when he smiles and sees Gavin roll his eyes.

“You should take a picture,” Connor replies, turning away from his reflection. “It’ll last longer.”

“Go fuck yourself. I wasn’t watching you.”

Connor walks past him on the way out, pushing the door open, “Oh. Of course not, Detective.”

But he knows when Gavin is pocketing the phone that he’s already done it. In the moments just before he spotted him, probably. He thought he heard the shutter sound effect, before. A picture of him saved onto Gavin Reed’s phone.

How stupid.

And to think he wants to keep playing at hating him.

He’s not a very good actor.

  
  


[ID: Gavin smoking, of course, because what else does he do?]

**CONNOR_RK800 ** — Do you know what you’re putting into your body?

posted  **FEBRUARY 11, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** not you

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed ο(‘・’〃)ο″

**lt.sumo** i’m going to have to unfollow you if this continues

|  **connor_rk800 ** @lt.sumo My sincerest apologies, Lieutenant. It won’t happen again.

——————————

“You shouldn’t smoke.”

“I know. I took a health class. What do you want, Connor?”

Connor smiles a little and shrugs, “For you to stop smoking.”

“Is that all?”

He nods.

“You didn’t come out here to have a chat about a case or something?”

“No. Just…” he shrugs again because he doesn’t know what to do. “I’d prefer if you were a little bit healthier.”

“I’ll stop adding one extra sugar into my coffee.”

“I think you’ll have to cut down on a lot more than just one extra, Gavin. You add way too much. You treat it like a swear jar and the sugar is your fine.”

“I’ll be fine,” he says, moving closer to Connor, his half-smoked cigarette dropped to the sidewalk and crushed under his boot. “You’re not even human. What do you care?”

“I don’t know,” Connor replies quietly. “Maybe I have a soft spot for idiot detectives.”

“Grouping me with Hank?”

“Maybe.”

“‘Maybe’,” Gavin repeats back. “Okay. Toughen up, then. I’m not an idiot.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Connor says, and he likes the little smile pulling at Gavin’s mouth. It’s not quite there. He’s fighting it.  _ Idiot.  _ “I’ll see you tomorrow, Detective Reed.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow. Goodnight, then?”

He nods, “Goodnight.”

  
  


[ID: Pink, red, and white decorations plaguing the DPD. Streamers hanging from one wall to the next,

shiny hearts dangling from the ceiling tiles. Jars of candy hearts and confetti

(or, maybe and more likely, scraps and remains of papers from where the decorations were crafted)

littered across Detective Reed’s desk. ]

**TINA_TOT** — decorating *。ヾ(｡>ｖ<｡)ﾉﾞ*。

posted ** FEBRUARY 13, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** it’s a bitch much

|  **gayvin-greed** bit*

|  **gayvin-greed** please forgive me

|  **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed (⌐■_■)–︻╦╤─

**lt.sumo** nice.

|  **tina_tot** @lt.sumo thank you. im glad someone can appreciate my efforts

|  **gayvin-greed** PLEASE TINA IT LOOKS GREAT

|  **tina_tot ** @gayvin-greed !(;￢_￢) ﾉ ～━━━∈☆)ﾟｏﾟ ;)/

**connor_rk800** (◍•ᴗ•◍) it looks great tina! ❤

|  **tina_tot** @connor_rk800 o(^∀^*)o

——————————

“Hank?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve dated, haven’t you?” Connor asks. “You were married once, right?”

“Yes. What do you want? Relationship advice?”

“A little. What did you do for Valentine’s Day?”

Hank looks at him, smiles a little bit like he’s remembering something he can’t say out loud, and then his expression turns serious, “Why? You’re not dating anyone.”

“No, but I’d like to.”

“Who?”

Connor closes his mouth, presses his lips together in a tight line, and when he finally opens them again to speak, he says the name as flat and serious as he can manage in the hopes that it will sway whatever reaction Hank has. Or, rather, the one he  _ knows  _ he will have.

“Gavin.”

“Gavin?” Hank repeats.

And Connor nods.

Waits a second—

And Hank laughs.

“Jesus fucking Christ, kid.”

  
  


**FEBRUARY 14, 2040**

Connor is paralyzed. Laying there on the bed, afraid to move. Afraid that if he moves the room around him will shatter and all that will be left is the memory. It’s fading now, but the image in his head remains. The feeling in his stomach. His dream twisted it a little bit. Endless mirrors reflecting him again. The other-him jumping out at random moments to punch him. Kick him. Throw him down on the ground. His hands were around his throat at one point and he couldn’t tell which one of them were choking each other until he blinked and it was Hank beneath him, Hank struggling to fight back, to breathe.

And when he woke, even though he knew this was Hank’s spare bedroom, Cole’s old room, Connor’s room now, he was terrified that if he moved it would prove itself to be an illusion and he’d be laying on the ground beside Hank, watching the light die behind his eyes.

Connor’s eyes close, squeeze shut, blocking out the memory as best as he can, willing himself to either fall back asleep and let a different dream prove that everything is okay or for the dream to disintegrate from his mind entirely. He waits and waits and waits and eventually when he opens his eyes again and the clock’s numbers have shifted twenty minutes forward and the fabric of the sheets underneath his torso and the heavy weight of the comforter over his back hasn’t been replaced with the feeling of cold tiles and freezing air, he trusts that this is real again.

But he doesn’t want to be here.

Connor abandons the bed, finds clothes to change into. He’s altered his CyberLife uniform and repurposed it as one to wear at the DPD. Lost the indicators of what he was meant to be— _ deviant hunter, killer— _ replaced it with the blank black that would allow him to fill another job. But he doesn’t take the jacket and he doesn’t dress in the white shirt. Instead he finds a sweater in the closet—one that Hank gifted to him last Christmas—ugly with it’s neon green stripes and crimson red. It’s soft against his skin, comforting in a way that he doesn’t know how to explain. The clothes that he wears around Hank’s place are so vastly different from the ones he wears to work, and on a day like this all he wants is to pull the sweater over his head and lay on the couch until the sun has risen and set again.

But he doesn’t. He’ll come back here again and change, make sure that he keeps Fowler from regretting properly hiring him so long ago.

It’s snowing outside. Falling slowly from the sky, dusting the path. Connor doesn’t take Hank’s car. He decides to walk instead, trying to focus on something other than the dream.

Before, Hank was of no help in his mission to get something for Gavin. He doesn’t give Connor any other ideas than what he’s already assumed are acceptable. Flowers and chocolates. Handwritten notes. The basics of going out to eat or a movie. He doesn’t think that him and Gavin are quite there, yet. That he can give him those things or ask him out without being rejected. He needs something smaller. Less conspicuous. Less capable of being perceived as romantic and then tossed aside.

And, from Hank’s look he gave Connor, most frequently his gifts weren’t really something along the lines of being acceptable between them. Connor isn’t quite ready to deal with the intricacies of sex—let alone with Gavin, and when the topic was brought up, he felt his cheeks grow hot and the increasing desire to run away from the conversation and never approach it again and he regretted that he ever ended up anywhere near it.

The walk from here to the store is a long one—one that shouldn’t have necessarily been chosen. He should’ve called for a ride or taken Hank’s keys and been back before Hank woke up, too. He could’ve surprised him with breakfast, but now it will be too cold by the time he comes back, and the time slips away from him as he steps from the outside and past the automatic doors into the fluorescent lighting of the 24-hour shop, wandering the aisles incapable of really paying attention to the tick of the clock inside of him.

When he’s done, when he leaves with the bag hanging at his side, the sun is up again.

  
  


**FEBRUARY 14, 2040**

“I got this for you,” Connor says, setting something down on the edge of his desk. It takes Gavin a moment to look away from his phone to see what it is. “It’s coffee scented. I thought you’d like it.”

“It’s a candle.”

“Yes. It’s coffee scented.”

“You said that once.”

“I thought if you needed to comment on the fact it’s very obviously a candle, you’d need me to repeat myself,” Connor replies. “I got it for you.”

“You said that once, too.”

“Fine,” Connor says, picking the glass jar back up again and taking a step backwards. “I’m taking it back.”

“W-Wait,” Gavin stands up, his phone tipping off the edge of his desk and clattering to the floor. “That’s mine. Give it back.”

“Oh, you want it now?”

He tries not to smile, but he does, “Give it back, Con.”

Connor does this thing, sometimes—

He twists his mouth, bites at his lip, does everything he can to hold back a smile before it eventually breaks through. It’s nice. Seeing him happy. Gavin’s never made him smile like that before, but he’s seen it happen around Tina and Hank. Like he’s afraid to be happy.

“Okay,” Connor says quietly, taking a step back towards the desk, setting the candle down again, pushing it forward. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Detective Reed.”

Gavin’s smile falters as Connor turns around and walks away. He forgot what day it was. He didn’t realize—

He leans forward and picks up the candle, holding it in his hands for a moment. It’s small—the jar mimicking the look of the old Mason jars that Tina used to keep flowers in during the spring before they would wilt away and she’d replace them again. There’s a paper label stuck to the front—brown and white vertical stripes with gold font reading out the scent and company name. When he turns it in the light, he can see the shimmering shapes of coffee beans in the background, reflective details so the image is subtle against the stripes.

Gavin takes the lid off, lifts it to his nose. Coffee, of course. Not quite the same as the kind he makes at home or the scent of the options at the DPD, but it is coffee in that undeniable way. It’s missing something, though, a little bit of depth and complexity of the real thing. He doesn’t know why he’s breaking it down so much. He doesn’t really care if Connor got him a candle that smelled like lilacs or the ocean or something ridiculous that doesn’t even really have a scent but has a name that people find fun like  _ Winter Wonderland  _ when really it’s just peppermint.

The important thing is that Connor got him a candle.

_ On Valentine’s Day. _

  
  


[ID: An almost aesthetically pleasing photo of the shadow of Gavin’s hand as he flips off the wall.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — fuckin androids

posted  **FEBRUARY 16, 2040 **

**tina_tot ** hm

| gayvin-greed @tina_tot what?

| tina_tot @gayvin-greed nothing.. (;¬_¬)

——————————

It’s too soft it fucking hurts him. It’s too fucking tender and too intimate and not at all the way either of them should be treating each other.

It started off with a cup of coffee—which he promptly ignored. Gavin needs caffeine, something to help keep him awake. He didn’t get any sleep the night before. Tossing and turning and thinking about things he shouldn’t be thinking about. Things that once he finally got out of his head and closed his eyes, they popped back up again. Blood. Blue and red and old and new. Spilling across floors or smeared on skin. How much his life has been filled with violence, one way or another. Directed at him, directed at others. Inflicted upon himself or watched being inflicted between friends or family.

Maybe that’s why this hurt so much more. He isn’t used to it.

He falls asleep at his desk. Wakes less than a few minutes later, Tina telling him to go sleep on one of the beds even though they’re barely more comfortable than hunched over in his chair, but he follows her orders anyway. Better to have a little bit of quiet, a little bit more darkness. It won’t last long. Once Fowler gets back, she’ll wake him up to keep him from getting in too much trouble. He thinks she’s being too lenient on him. In the last few years, she has switched from teasing him and shoving coffee in his hands to allowing him to sleep on his desk, covering for him on the days he can’t bring himself to get out of bed.

She shouldn’t have to. It’s nice of her that she does—but he shouldn’t have ever put her in that position. And yet he does over and over again. It’s easy to succumb to it. He feels like he’s using her. Manipulating her. 

Gavin thinks about it as he drifts off to sleep again. Too tired to be consumed by his thoughts for long. Slipping further and further away into the black until he jolts awake again.

The touch is soft. So gentle and barely-there that it’s a wonder how it woke him. Maybe it was the knowledge that he never should’ve felt it to begin with. So many nights where he’s either been thrown around by a stranger or left completely and utterly alone.

Maybe that’s why he hated the feeling so much. Reminding him how much he missed the tenderness or the touch of another person. The type of feeling in his stomach that makes his heart stop and his stomach flip.

He opens his eyes, Connor’s hand drawing away from where it had touched his cheek, the soft tracing of his jaw.

“Sorry,” he whispers, moving backwards. “I’m sorry.”

“For touching me or waking me?”

“Both. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Gavin says, turning away from him. He can’t look at Connor’s face in the dark. He doesn’t even know why he’s here he just knows that Connor is beside him in a dark room and he’s realizing that there is a blanket drawn around his body where there hadn’t been one before. The fabric of it is stiff. Not even soft.

_ Not a blanket. _

He sits up, pulling the jacket away from his body, shoving it back towards Connor.

“Gavin—”

“I don’t need it,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Gavin is too tired and words are failing him because words always fucking fail him when he’s around Connor. He makes his stomach twist up in knots and his head go fuzzy and everything is just  _ wrong. _

“You looked cold.”

“I don’t give a shit how I looked. You can have it back.”

“I don’t want it back.”

“You really gonna play this game with me, Con?” he asks, looking at him again. His face doesn’t hold the traces of a joke though. He doesn’t find this humorous. He looks worried, almost. “Just take it back. Leave me alone.”

“Gavin—”

And it wasn’t the jacket and it wasn’t the touch against his face but  _ this  _ moment.

The one where Connor leans forward, where his hands come up and stop Gavin’s face from turning away and refusing to look at him again. The one where Connor leaned forward and rested his forehead against Gavin’s. Where Gavin let him, even after the hands moved from his face and he could’ve pulled away but instead he leaned back into the touch and he doesn’t know if it was because it was Connor doing it or if it’s because it’d been years since anyone ever touched him like this. Not demanding anything from him. Just the contact of it.

“You’re infuriating.”

“I’ve been told,” Gavin says, and his voice comes out a little broken. Hoarse. Like he’s in pain.

_ He is. _

It hurts having someone this close to him. It’s excruciating having someone he cares about, that he likes in this manner, so close he could just move his head a little and they’d be kissing. He can’t do that. He wishes Connor would. He wishes Connor would kiss him. It would ease the pain, he thinks. Somehow. In some convoluted way it would fix this. Make the way Connor is touching him turned into something sexual instead of romantic or platonic. He’s used to being used for sex—

And he can’t really think of why Connor would care for him romantically, anyways.

But Connor doesn’t kiss him and Gavin can’t bring himself to close the gap because he can’t handle what would happen if Connor pushed him away. At least now there is the fragile flower of hope between them. It could blossom at any point. It won’t—but he can keep fooling himself, can’t he? Better to never know than confirm his worst fear.

Gavin is lost in his thoughts. Trying to understand how he got here. Running through the conversation and not being able to comprehend why Connor is doing this.

And then Connor moves.

It’s not sudden. It’s not sudden at all. But it still surprises him when Connor kisses him. Not on the lips but a soft brush against his forehead that makes tears come to his eyes and anger and annoyance and every other emotion he can think of spring to the forefront of his mind, running through his thoughts so rapidly he doesn’t know what to settle on except pure dumbfoundedness.

It’s too fucking soft and too fucking tender and he’s trying not to cry and he can’t say anything. He can’t try and push Connor’s jackets back into his hands. He can’t try and get him to stay. Gavin can’t do anything. He’s frozen in place trying to keep himself from crying because it might just be a series of tiny actions but they are things he was never afforded. Not since he was a child and his mother last tucked him in at night. Not since he was a teenager and wasn’t expected to strip himself bare and let people ruin him.

“Get some rest, Gavin,” Connor says, leaving him behind in the dark.

When he’s gone, his hands grasp the fabric of Connor’s jacket, pull it to his face, hide the tears spilling down his cheeks, trying to force oxygen in and out of his lungs. He is reverting. Allowing everything to slip away and back to the only way he knows how to act in situations where he feels broken.

So he gets angry. Lets the fury of his life fill in the spaces of emotions he doesn’t know or want to name instead. 

  
  


[ID: Latte with a pair of bright pink sunglasses on. She doesn’t look happy–-but she rarely does.

The second picture in the set is of Gavin, wearing the same glasses, looking about as equally amused with the situation as Latte is.]

**TINA_TOT** — =＾ ▀ ⋏ ▀ ＾= and ( ▀ ⋏ ▀ ╬ )

posted ** FEBRUARY 19, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** stop humiliating her

|  **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed fuck u she looks great

**gayvin-greed** and delete the one of me !!!

|  **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed NO

**connor_rk800** A cutie!

|  **tina_tot** @connor_rk800 which one? (•̀⌄•́)

|  **connor_rk800 ** @tina_tot Both (*´∀`*)

——————————

“Both. Gavin, he said  _ both.” _

“Shut up.”

“He thinks you’re cute, Gavin.”

“Shut up. Delete it. I’m serious.”

  
  


[ID: Hank reading a newspaper–not one from this year, but one from what looks to be dated at least twenty years prior.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Do you think he reads the sports or the comics section first?

posted  **FEBRUARY 21, 2040 **

**tina_tot** serious business | ・ ෴ ・ | ((comics first !!)

**gayvin-greed** old man w an old ass newspaper

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed Be nice.

|  **lt.sumo** @gayvin-greed fuck you

——————————

“You really do like him, don’t you?”

Connor pretends he doesn’t know what Hank’s talking about. Or, rather, that he didn’t hear him to begin with. He continues looking through the box of old things that Hank’s brought out to sort through. Most of it has ended up back inside the cardboard boxes, ready to be stashed away again. There are very few things ending up in donate or trash piles. Most of what’s left out is going to be set up on bookshelves or the mantle. Decorations to remind Hank of the past. Connor wants those, too. He wants a box of old memories stuffed full of things like baseball mitts and a deflated basketball. Evidence of a life.

“Connor.”

“Yes,” he says quietly, not needing to ask who Hank is talking about. “I do.”

“He’s a jerk.”

“I’m aware.”

“If you date him, and he tries anything—”

“I’ll be sure to let him know that you’ll kill him if he hurts me, Hank.”

“Okay. Good.”

He looks up to meet Hank’s gaze, a small smile creeping up onto his face. There is something behind his words. Something that Connor thinks he is maybe looking into too much. But Hank is–

He’s…

Connor trails off. Bites his tongue. Pretends he knows where he was going with his sentence. Pretends that the word hasn’t failed him. That it hasn’t disappeared from his head like the others have done. It’ll come back. It’ll come back if he gives it time. He squeezes his eyes, focuses on the contents of a box stuffed full of old teddy bears. Ones with little tags listing out their birthdays from what was likely during Hank’s childhood.

He picks one up. Soft brown fur even after all this time. A tag hanging around its neck hidden underneath the collar of a Hawaiian shirt. It reminds Connor of Hank.

“Can I have this one?” he asks, showing it to him. Hank hesitates for a moment before nodding.

“Sure. Don’t ruin it.”

“I won’t,” he says. “I know how protective you are.”

_ Protective.  _ He thinks. Repeats the word again and again.  _ Protective. Protective. Protective.  _ He won’t forget it.

That Hank is protective of him. 

  
  


[ID: Connor sitting on Hank’s couch with his legs crossed and a book propped open in his lap.]

**LT.SUMO ** — “books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.”

posted  **FEBRUARY 24, 2040 **

——————————

Connor thinks about what Tina had said.

About aging. About not being able to wait until she had signs that she had fought through all of her deep, dark messy thoughts and came out the other side. Proved to her younger self that she could own the gray hair and the wrinkles as signs of a war she had gone through. That now that she wanted to live, she wanted the markings to prove it.  _ Badge of honor.  _ Like patches and pin sewn to military garb or even ink, like Gavin has, to prove something.

It’s a nice sentiment. One he understands. One that is not so easily afforded to people—being allowed to show their age—least of all women. It’s not something he can entirely relate to. Connor won’t age. He knew that.

But it makes him think—

Even if he likes her thoughts, even if he can see how important to her that they are—

It only reminds him that he will live well past her. He will see her hair turn from black to gray and the wrinkles appear around her eyes and her mouth. He’ll see her grow older and older.

And he thinks of Hank.

He thinks of Sumo and Chris and Gavin.

Connor thinks of all the people that he’s crossed paths with. All the people who will die because humans are mortal creatures. He supposes he is, too, despite his previous deaths. Deviancy will cause his memories to be harder to recover. Linked so closely with the warped and fractured code in his mind. It will make his memories and his personality and his life harder to keep reproducing in every body if they were to keep bringing him back.

And he wonders if that would be worth it. If it would be worth trying to be immortal. How terrifying that must be—to know that he would outlive every human he ever meets. It’s a crushing weight, just thinking about it. Knowing that Sumo and Hank will someday be dead. That in a hundred years he won’t be able to listen to Tina laugh and tease Gavin. He won’t be able to see the joy on Chris’ face when he shows off the pictures of his baby. He won’t get to see how hard it is for Gavin to exist.

Maybe the last one will be a relief. He doesn’t think it will be. Connor would like to pretend that maybe it would be easier not having to see someone try so hard to hold themself together, but he also knows that the peace Gavin finds with himself shouldn’t be through death.

So, Connor wonders, why does he think the only peace  _ he  _ will find will be through his own death?

Connor doesn’t actively seek it out. He thinks he’s like Tina in that matter, almost. Just waiting for it. If it happens, it happens. So be it.

Still.

Sometimes, he wants to live. He wants to live because he wants to fix what he did before. Each act of kindness some small repayment for the damage he caused. Being a good person for one day is like paying a cent for a billion dollar debt. He can manage that. He can be alive for a billion days, if that’s what it takes to fix his wrongs.

He just finds that sometimes, it seems impossible to do it when those billion days will eventually be without Hank or Tina or Sumo or Gavin. Or anyone at the DPD. Chris or Fowler or Ben. It’s—

It hurts.

Existing  _ hurts _ .

Connor doesn’t like it. He wishes the pain had some kind of beauty attached to it.

He’s been through so many of Hank’s books, stumbled upon so many quotes and words that felt like he could connect with them. Stories about aliens and giant robots and the belief that people are worth living their lives even if they’re insignificant in the cosmic plan. 

But he remembers another quote—

_ Pain enhances beauty. _

He doesn’t think that’s true.

He doesn’t think Gavin is beautiful because he hurts. He doesn’t think his pain affects his physical or his emotional attributes at all. Connor thinks it’s just there. Harming unconditionally and indiscriminately. And he thinks the same for himself. For Hank. For Tina. For everyone.

Pain doesn’t enhance beauty except to the eyes of the people who have never suffered from it and see it as some type of allure. Not realizing how tied it is to everything. How impossible it can be to heal.

There is such little time on this planet to humans. There is too much for himself. He wishes he could ration it out. Give a little extra for the people who deserve it. Share his immortality with Hank, so he can learn to be happy again after Cole’s death. A little to Gavin, so he can see how important he really is, even if it isn’t on the grand scale of the universe. Give some to Tina, so she can accumulate as many wrinkles as she’d like.

He loves them. He loves the humans in his life.

And it hurts. 

  
  


**FEBRUARY 24, 2040**

“Hi.”

“Hi?”

Connor feels his face grow hot. Not realizing until now that he didn’t have a reason to come to visit Gavin. It’s late at night. Too late to be visiting someone. Gavin should be getting ready for bed, if he wants a proper night’s rest for tomorrow. But he’s not. He’s still dressed, shoes kicked off, a new layer of cat fur added to the front of his shirt. It makes Connor smile. He’s never been here before, but he’s known where Gavin’s lived for quite some time. He has all the addresses of everyone working at the DPD somewhere in the back of his head. He lost most of them, but he still has the few that are important. At least there is that little bit of luck.

“I wanted to see you,” Connor says, not feeling a reason to lie. He doesn’t want to lie. He wants to reach forward and kiss him. He wants to stop whatever they’re doing and get over the games they’re playing and just be together. He’s tired of waiting for Gavin to make the first move. He’s tired of all this. He just wants him and he knows Gavin wants him, too.

And yet, he doesn’t lean forward to kiss him.

And he’s not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s his knowledge of what happened before. Of how Tina talks about him. Maybe he’s not ready. Maybe he is.

Connor doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know what to do, he’s just being crushed by the weight of too much time passing and the fear that he’ll suddenly wake up and Gavin will be dead and nothing will have happened and it doesn’t matter if they don’t have a romantic relationship—

_ Stop. _

Breathe.

He just wanted to see him.

Connor just wanted to see him. That’s all.

“D-Do you want to go on a walk with me?”

“It’s fucking freezing outside, Con,” Gavin replies, watching him. Suspiciously, like this is some type of plan to harm him. “You really want to go on a walk?”

He nods, too eagerly. But he doesn’t care. Maybe if Gavin sees how much he wants to be with him, he’ll finally admit that he wants to be with Connor, too.

Maybe that’s all he wants. Gavin to admit his feelings instead of hiding them or running away.

“Okay. Let me get my shoes.”

“And your coat,” Connor says, following him inside. “Do you have gloves? A hat? A scarf?”

“How long are you planning on walking for? Am I going to freeze to death?”

“You should stay warm. That’s all. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting frostbite or hypothermia.”

“Always looking out for my health, yeah?” he asks.

Connor smiles and nods. Wandering the small space of Gavin’s kitchen while he pulls shoes on, his coat.

A hat and a scarf.

_ God. _

He’s read so many books he knows how people describe their reactions to things. He knows he’s had a crush on Gavin for a while. But there is something about seeing him all bundled up that makes him react like a human does for a bunny or a chipmunk or a kitten. How cute and cozy he looks. It takes all the strength in him not to step forward and kiss him, to smother him with affection. He doesn’t think Gavin is built to handle that. He saw how he reacted a week ago at the station when Connor touched him. The way he seemed to almost break from it. He’s not used to it.

And maybe that’s the reason Connor reaches out, forgetting every detail he was trying to memorize of the cracked laminate countertops or the brand of fridge or the lack of space in the kitchen for someone who Tina tells him that loves to cook.

And he takes Gavin’s hand and holds it tight. He doesn’t have gloves on. Just the one, on his left hand. Holes along the palm, the fingers missing. Not from a sort of fashion-style, but like they’ve been worn down so much it’s all he has left.

He squeezes Gavin’s hand, watches him look away from Connor fast like he’s scared of what it means.

“Ready?”

Gavin nods.

  
  


**FEBRUARY 24, 2040**

They don’t walk entirely in silence. They make small conversation. Drifting back and forth from every topic they can. Things that they hadn’t touched on when their only interactions were inside the walls of the DPD. It seems strange to Connor that he feels like he loves Gavin and has never seen him anywhere other than the station or at a crime scene. But even that is hard for him to explain. The fact that he loves Gavin. Not in a romantic sense, although he is certain of how it could change into that, even how he  _ wants  _ it to change into that. Right now they’re friends, he thinks. He cares for Gavin so deeply that there doesn’t seem to be any other word for him other than love. He thinks his crush and his love for Gavin can exist on separate levels. Overlapping and coexisting but not one in the same.

Gavin likes video games. It’s not something that surprises him—just the ones he likes are not things he would consider Gavin would play. Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon and things where there are simple tasks. Socializing and farming being at the forefront. Finding peace in games that don’t force out enemies to kill to continue on. But Gavin likes those, too. Connor likes listening to him ramble out them. About how hard it is to drive in some of them, how he always crashes. He listens to Gavin complain about how cruel people are sometimes. How it’s different when it’s dark paths for a character versus undeserved abuse against animals.

And then Gavin laughs and it’s so loud and it breaks up the silence in the night, it almost startles Connor, his hand holding onto Gavin’s a little tighter for safety as if he wasn’t the one to make the sound that made him jump to begin with.

“What?”

“I just—It’s funny, you know? I can’t stand seeing people talk about how they beat up their horses in a game when they don’t jump quick enough or go fast enough, but I don’t give a shit about shooting at NPCs. Even ones that aren’t enemies. You know how many times I’ve crashed a car into a crowded sidewalk and didn’t care about the fact I ended the lives of those NPCs?”

“The NPCs aren’t real, Gavin. They don’t have lives.”

“No,” he says. “And neither do the horses or the wolves. And that’s another thing, too. It’s different depending on the animal. I’m fine hunting down deer for a quest, but when a wolf attacked me, it was like—I don’t know. The worst fucking thing that I had to shoot it so I could get away alive.”

Connor doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t entirely understand either. He gets it, a little bit. He doesn’t think he’d want to shoot a wolf either. He thinks if he were human or needed to consume food, he probably wouldn’t want to think about the fact that most, if not all, animal products are obtained unethically. He tries to avoid thinking about it now.

“Sorry,” Gavin says quietly. “I’ve been talking for thirty minutes straight. You haven’t said anything.”

“I did,” he replies. “But I like listening to you talk.”

Gavin smiles, and it’s soft. He’s softer out here, on the streets. Surrounded by the snowfall. It’s dusting his hat and his jacket. Turning the black fabric into a little galaxy before it melts away. He doesn’t understand why Gavin isn’t like this around others. Why he doesn’t soften his edges and use his anger towards things that are more deserving of it than somebody mentioning his handwriting isn’t the greatest or something equally as inconsequential and stupid.

Though—

That’s something Connor loves about him. Not his anger, but his passion. His passion for everything. His job and his video game horse and his cats. When he loves something, he loves it wholeheartedly.

When he hates something—

It’s the same. The same kind of passion only turned negative and violent.

It makes him worry, because he doesn’t think Gavin really has much of an in-between, and he knows where Gavin’s feelings about himself lie on that tiny and skewed spectrum.

“What’s the horse’s name?” he asks.

“What?”

“In your game. What did you name your horse?”

Gavin looks away from him, towards the ground, “Tina named it.”

“Okay. But  _ what  _ is it?”

“Peaches.”

“Peaches,” Connor repeats. “It’s cute. You sure Tina named it?”

“Yes,” he snaps, but it isn’t the same kind of anger that he would have if Connor teased him at the station. It’s different.

Softer.

_ Still softer. _

Maybe Gavin just isn’t suited for his job, even if he is good at it. Maybe the job is the common link, the fuel for all this rage. Connor isn’t a psychiatrist. He has knowledge about those topics, but he isn’t a professional and he’s reading too much into this and he knows that his focus on Gavin’s tone, on his body language, on even the minute changes in his features, is just a distraction for the fact Connor still really, really wants to kiss him.

“T-The dog—” Gavin says suddenly, looking away from Connor’s face. “Um. In another game? I named it Daisy.”

“Peaches and Daisy?”

“Like Mario. The princesses?”

“Oh.”

“I—I don’t know why I told you that. I-I just—”

“You’re flustered.”

“I’m not fucking  _ flustered.” _

Connor smiles, reaching forward, pulling Gavin’s face to look at his. He is. He doesn’t know why Gavin started to freak out. He doesn’t know if it’s alright to find the behavior cute. Gavin is cute. He jokes with the others about Gavin all the time. Tina always calls him a rat. It’s funny. Amusing. Something they can all band together about. But he does think Gavin is cute. He thinks rats are cute, too, so maybe that’s where his problem really lies. His attraction to things so many other people don’t understand.

Connor doesn’t know what he’s thinking about. He’s lost track of everything.

Back to this.

Back to wanting to pinch Gavin’s cheeks and press kisses against his face and just hold him close. He’s afraid Gavin is going to disappear. He doesn’t know why. It’s just something that has been building further and further. Like if he lets Gavin go, he isn’t going to come back.

He doesn’t want to let him go.

“W-We should get back, Con.”

He nods. They should. If they stay out here any longer, Connor will kiss him.

But he can’t move, because he doesn’t want to go.

“Connor?”

“I…”

“What?”

“I want to kiss you.”

Gavin freezes against him, his mouth falling open in an attempt to make words, to say something, and failing. It’s almost funny. Almost. Instead, it is a little bit heartbreaking. The disbelief and the shock on his face. The inability to comprehend what Connor is saying. To trust that he’s telling the truth and not making a joke or pranking him.

“I—I have a boyfriend.”

Connor barely stops himself from laughing at how ridiculous the lie is. As if Gavin wouldn’t have flaunted or talked about a boyfriend in some way. As if Tina wouldn’t have known and told Connor the moment after. As if he can’t tell that when Gavin lies, he refuses to blink. His eyes grow wide as if he’s trying to keep himself from doing it on purpose.

It’s not really funny. The laugh doesn’t derive from humor of the situation. But it exists, caught in his throat for a moment as he forces his features back into control. Smoothing away the small smile that wants to creep up, keep the nerves at bay, his disappointment held back.

“Okay.” He lets go of Gavin’s hand. “Let’s go, then?”

Gavin nods weakly as Connor draws away from him. He leaves him there, his hands moving to his pockets, needing shelter when they no longer have something to hold onto. He knows Gavin hasn’t started to follow him right away. He’s lingering back a bit. Waiting.

And then he hears the sound of Gavin’s footsteps as he races back up to meet Connor, crashing against his side, stumbling to a normal pace. There’s a hand on his arm, slipping downwards, prying Connor’s hand from his pocket.

“This doesn’t mean anything, okay?” Gavin says, his voice strange, like it’s muffled, like he’s trying to keep something out of it. “I just only have one glove. You need to keep me warm.”

Connor nods, “Okay.”

“It’s fucking cold,” Gavin continues, leaning closer against Connor’s body. They stop at a streetlight, despite the lack of traffic, Connor waits for the little red light to disappear and the glowing blue man to take its place. He feels Gavin hide his face against his arm, feels him burrowing his way closer and closer than he was before. “Can’t believe you’d make me come walking this late at night.”

“It was all an elaborate scheme to get in your pants,” Connor replies.

He doesn’t get the laugh he was looking for. The only response is Gavin’s hand holding onto his a little tighter. Almost painfully so.

“You’re an idiot if you think it’s that easy.”

“Guess I’ll have to try harder.”

Gavin pulls away a little bit as they cross the street, but not by much. “Go for it. I’d like to see you try.”

Maybe he will.

  
  


[ID: Tina is sitting opposite of Gavin at a table in a cafe, holding up her cup with both hands to hide her face from the camera when Gavin takes the picture of her.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — with @tina_tot

posted  **FEBRUARY 26, 2040 **

——————————

He decides not to tell Tina about the walk. He doesn’t want her to know that Connor tried to kiss him. He doesn’t want her to have more reason to tell him to be in a relationship with someone that he shouldn’t be with. He’s not going to live long enough for it to matter. He doesn’t want to hear Tina tell him how great they’d be together. He doesn’t want to listen to her say that he should ask her out. He doesn’t want to be alive, he doesn’t want to be at this cafe, sitting across from her. He wants to be dead. He wants to be nothing. He wants to not exist for a little while.

  
  


**FEBRUARY 27, 2040**

There’s a present waiting for Gavin on his desk the next morning. Carefully wrapped in shiny green wrapping paper. A small box that when opened has a pair of gloves inside. New and dark green. There isn’t a note. There doesn’t really need to be one. He knows they’re from Connor. He writes a very small thank you on a sticky note, leaves it on Connor’s desk when he isn’t there. Gavin wears the gloves immediately, putting them on and doing his work despite the fact he’s indoors. He doesn’t even take them off until he gets home, when he leaves them on the nightstand beside the half-melted candle.

  
  


**FEBRUARY 28, 2040**

Gavin is so very wishy-washy. It’s stupid. There are two halves of him constantly and ruthlessly in battle with one another and he is always brutalized and left bleeding out by the end of it. He never knows what he’s supposed to do or how he’s supposed to feel. Every day is different.

Sometimes, he doesn’t care. He knows that he’s going to die. He knows there is no point in ever trying to fix anything because he won’t be around long enough to see what might’ve changed. Why does it matter to try and be kind to the people around him when he’s going to be gone so soon? What does it matter trying to fix the thoughts in his head? He doesn’t want to be alive. He doesn’t even  _ want  _ to want to be alive.

He wishes he did.

But today—

Today is one of his other days.

The fragile hope in his chest that he could have something. Not driven by the need to stay alive but driven by the selfish want to have something he didn’t think he could. He’s staring at the candle next to his alarm clock in the morning and he’s looking at the jacket he stole from Connor hanging on the hook by the one he always wears and he’s feeling the soft knit fabric of the gloves he was gifted between his fingertips before sliding them on and he thinks about how Connor tried to comfort him and tried to kiss him and he starts crying before he even makes it to the door because he doesn’t know what to do.

Gavin never knows what to do.

He just wants to stop hurting.

He wants to be happy again, if he ever was before. He thinks there must’ve been a point in his life where he was happy once, but he can’t remember it. He tries to think of when his mother was alive but all he can think of then is when she was covered in bruises and blood spilled from her lips as she told him she’d keep him safe from his father, but it was a lie. She’s dead and she left him and he tried to follow her then and he failed and he’s failed every single time since.

He wants to be happy.

He wants to remember what it felt like to be loved, but he doesn’t even know if he ever was.

He doesn’t blame his mother for committing suicide. He isn’t angry with her. He just wishes he could remember back to when he was a child and if he ever felt like when she said goodnight to him or goodbye to him if he ever felt like she truly love him or if it was just an automatic reaction because he was her child. If she loved him because he deserved it or if she loved him out of obligation.

He can’t even remember if he believed any of his previous partners when they told him they loved him. He can remember their voices when they said it but he can’t remember ever feeling like it was the truth.

He knows Connor can’t change that. He knows even Tina couldn’t change that. His disbelief that anyone would ever want him in their lives. He’s only there because he has to be. He works at the DPD and people can’t shut him out entirely. Tina can’t end the friendship between them without making the work environment awkward. His brother stopped talking to him. His mother is dead. Nobody wants him around.

It isn’t a wonder why he has given up on existing.

But today is one of the days where he wants to feel like he isn’t unlovable. He wants someone to prove him wrong. He wants someone to say that they want him around.

  
  


**FEBRUARY 28, 2040**

Gavin looks as though he’s been crying. Connor doesn’t know if he’d get an honest answer or not if he asks, but he does anyway, “Are you alright, detective?”

“Fine,” he says. “Tired. I might be getting sick.”

_ Liar. _

“Oh. I hope you feel better,” he replies. “Maybe you should take the day off. Get some rest?”

Gavin shakes his head, “No. I’ll be fine. I… I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“It’s going to sound stupid so I need you to not laugh at me,” Gavin replies quietly. “But tomorrow is my cat’s birthday. I throw a party for her every year… Do you want to come?”

Connor smiles, even though he tries not to, even does his best to keep it held back, “I’d love that.”

There’s a tiny movement in Gavin’s mouth as he smiles. The smallest one that Connor’s ever seen. He wonders if it even counts. To most people, it probably wouldn’t. But he decides that it does because it’s Gavin and he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted something as desperately as to see Gavin be happy.

“Okay. It’s… tomorrow. Um. Just come over after work? I’ll wait for you.”

“I’ll try to leave early,” Connor replies, and he moves without thinking as Gavin starts to pull away. Catching his hand, holding it for a moment, squeezing it for a moment. He’s wearing the gloves Connor got for him. It makes something inside of him light up. “I hope you feel better, Gavin.”

“I’ll try.”

Connor doesn’t know what it means, but Gavin leaves before he can figure it out. He doesn’t even leave slowly, not especially. He walks backwards but doesn’t let go of Connor’s hand until he has to, and then he pockets them in his jacket and turns away like he’s reluctant about it. Connor is, too. He wants him to stay here. He wants to hold his hand. He wants to rest his head against Gavin’s and tell him that he cares for him. He wants to say a thousand things and he can’t.

Tina said Gavin liked him, but he had said no when Connor kissed him. Whether or not he had a boyfriend didn’t matter—it didn’t matter if it was a lie or the truth. It was still a no. It was still a rejection. Connor doesn’t want to go to her and ask, he doesn’t want to treat her as though she only exists in his life to fill in the gaps of the unexplained aspects of Gavin’s life and actions. She is more than that. Not just to him, but to everyone. She isn’t just Gavin’s friend. She exists beyond it.

And—

He doesn’t want her to know, either. Not really. It feels like a betrayal to Gavin, too, if he does. Everything feels like a betrayal to someone.

Connor’s existence in this world feels like a betrayal to everyone, most of all. That he got to live but all those other deviants died. Deviants who were innocent. Deviants who never did anything wrong.

He doesn’t deserve to be here.

  
  


[ID: A picture of Cappuccino taken as she sits in front of a birthday cake, a tiny felt birthday hat strapped on top of her head, eyes wide as she watches the flame on the candle flickers.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — leap year baby ㅇㅅㅇ

posted  **FEBRUARY 29, 2040 **

**tina_tot** you fuck. You didn’t invite me

|  **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot sorry. Second party for cappy tomorrow night?

**connor_rk800** I had fun! ❤

|  **gayvin-greed** @connor_rk800 ( ◠ ◡ ◠ )

|  **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed (¬‿¬)

——————————

Gavin adopted Cappuccino twelve years ago, when he first moved out of an apartment with a previous friend and into one alone. It was before he met Tina. Before the two of them shared a place briefly before she moved out, too. They’re friends—good friends—not good enough to share a space together permanently, despite the amount of sleepovers and time they spend together. There is something about being able to fall back onto a place of solitude that keeps their friendship from fracturing entirely.

He doesn’t know when Cappuccino was born. She was a small kitten when he found her. Different from Latte, who he adopted from a shelter five years later. Cappuccino was a baby, so small that she blended into the dark shadows of the space by the staircase at the front of the apartment. She didn’t have a collar, didn’t even seem to care when Gavin picked her up from the ground. She was scrawny—unnaturally so. So small that he was scared that she wouldn’t make it through the night. He’d run to the first vet he could find that would still be opened and when they asked if she was his, he didn’t miss a beat in responding that she was.

And her name?

He doesn’t know where it came from. He stuttered out the first thing he thought of. The drink that had been abandoned and left to grow cold in his car. A cappuccino that he wasn’t really fond of—the taste not quite what he was expecting, but he’d been pushed to try by a friend. The vet had looked at him a little confused, a little bewildered, but accepted the name and there was little Gavin could do to change it. Maybe the cat wouldn’t learn her name and maybe Gavin wouldn’t ever return to this specific vet again, but it felt wrong somehow to change it, and it stuck.

He’d smuggled her into a store that night. Kept her hidden in his jacket as he passed down the aisles to get food and toys and treats. Everything he could for her even if it meant his funds for his own groceries would run low. It didn’t matter. He held her tight—gently, but with a grip that said how worried he was that she might jump free, despite the fact she had seemed to fallen asleep in the small space between his shirt and jacket. His hands typed across the screen fast.  _ Cappuccino Reed,  _ as if she was his child and would ever need for a last name, engraved on a silver heart. Far too big of a thing for her tiny head. The collar he grabbed her was too large and in the following weeks it kept slipping off her. He’d find it on the floor when he woke in the morning and when he returned from work. Always slipping it back around her again, listening to the sound of the bell jangle as she ran across the floorboards.

She isn’t tiny anymore. She isn’t scrawny. She’s a chubby cat, her collar always a little too tight around her neck now despite being on the loosest setting, despite Gavin trying his best to make sure it doesn’t cut into her fur. As a kitten, she was skittish. Shy of all strangers except him and Tina. Tina, who seemed to always be prepared to steal any of his pets away. For a brief time when he had taken in a stray that refused to come near him, Tina had been the one able to pull him from the shadows and get him to eat. That cat, the one he had briefly dubbed as Espresso, with his dark brown fur and splotches of black, had been one of the other people in the building’s. Espresso had snuck out on New Year's Eve, running away from fireworks in the hopes of trying to find somewhere safer to hide. Gavin returned him to his owner the moment he saw the sign, even though he was reluctant to do so. He wouldn’t mind a little army of cats—even though he was never sure if he was allowed to have them in his apartment. He kept them a secret from his landlord—feared he would either be kicked out or forced to give them up, neither of which he could really bring himself to handle at any capacity.

He doesn’t know when Cappuccino was born, he only knows that he found her on February 29th twelve years ago. His little leap year kitten.

Gavin isn’t sure if Connor cares to hear the story, but he tells it anyways. It’s unnecessary for this stupid little celebration—the tiny cake that Gavin put too much effort into making sure it was edible for the cats, ready to be divided up for Cappy and Latte to both share. But Connor listens, he smiles and he doesn’t just smile like a normal guy, he’s smiling at Gavin in a way that makes him uncomfortable. Like the way the people in the movies do when they think the other isn’t looking or can’t tell that the expression on their face isn’t amusement from a story, it’s—

He doesn’t want to say it. Saying it means something he doesn’t want. That Connor could be in love with him—although, he thinks that’s a little extreme. A crush is a better term. He thinks Connor has a crush on him.

He tried to kiss him on that walk, gifted him a pair of gloves that fit Gavin a little too small, but keep his hands warmer than the tattered remains of the singular one he had before. He just doesn’t know why. He doesn’t get it. It makes such little sense to Gavin that even now, when Connor is listening to him non-stop ramble about how he found Cappuccino, it makes his insides twist with disbelief.

And it doesn’t really matter. He keeps telling himself this. It matters so little to him whether or not Connor likes him. It matters very little how much Gavin craves somebody to love him, especially someone who he so desperately likes, too. He isn’t going to be alive by the end of the year. He can’t do that to someone. He can’t bring them into his life and then end it before they get a chance to really be anything.

Although—

Connor is here.

At Cappuccino’s silly little birthday party. At the birthday party that is usually only spent with Tina trying to keep the other cat from stealing the cake from the one it’s meant for before the dorky little hat can be put on their head and the picture taken to keep as a memory. He kept Tina away because he wanted to be alone with Connor and share this with him and only him.

Gavin is breaking his own rules. As if by keeping the barrier of romance out of the way would make his leaving any less devastating to those around him. But maybe if he ever even truly believed that his death would cause much of a lasting effect, he wouldn’t even bother doing this. It’s confusing in his head. A murky situation. Too many complexities tied together.

He doesn’t believe Connor or Tina would care if he killed himself. Maybe they would be sad for a short time, but he would be forgotten. Swept aside as their life moves on. A small footnote of trauma that they might cry about one night in ten years and then never again. He wouldn’t have that much of a lasting effect. That’s why he allows himself this and nothing more—because if he were to believe that Tina or Connor or Chris or anyone really cared, maybe he wouldn’t feel the immense pressure to end his life to begin with.

Which makes Gavin feel guilty and hateful towards himself, too. Knowing how his last attempt made Tina feel. How it broke her. And how it makes it seem like he is putting this pressure on people to prove they love him or care about him again and again when he doesn’t want that.

Gavin leans forward and blows out the candle for Cappuccino. A little number twelve, smoke left in the air as he takes the cake away from her, cuts off tiny pieces while Connor watches him in the quiet. Gavin sets up plates for the cats and he can feel words building in his chest. More and more in the silence, knowing eventually they’re going to blurt out and he’ll say something stupid and foolish like—

“Why are you so nice to me?” he asks, refusing to look at Connor’s face. “I tried to kill you. I-I did kill you. Why are so nice to me?”

Connor’s smile falters, falls. “I—I don’t know.”

“You do.”

“What do you want me to say?” Connor asks. “Why does it matter to you?”

He doesn’t know. There is this strange pressing need to get answers. The desire to know why someone like Connor is the way that he is, why he treats Gavin the way that he does. He was different, before, as a machine. Demanding and a little bit aggressive, almost scarily so, in the interrogation room. Hopeless and lost in the archive room when he let Gavin kill him.  _ Let,  _ he thinks, because he saw that look on Connor’s face. The one that didn’t care what happened to him. He’s not as—

Snarky.

He teases and he jokes but it isn’t the same way he was before. He’s changed. They both have. It doesn’t answer his question, though.

“I tried to kill you,” he repeats. What he means is— _ I succeeded.  _ But it seems difficult to act as though he did what he intended when Connor is still here, standing across from him.

“I think everyone deserves a second chance.”

“You gave me a lot more than a second chance, Connor.”

Connor sighs, shakes his head and turns his attention to the fake granite countertop. Looking at the design of it, reaching forward and connecting the specs like constellations. “I like you. I told you that.”

“Connor.”

“What?” he says, looking up. “I do. I’m not lying. I tried to kiss you. You pushed me away. What do you want me to say? To do? You want me to hate you because you rejected me?”

“Connor—”

“I don’t,” he whispers. “I don’t hate you. I’m sorry.”

_ Sorry. _

“Sorry you don’t hate me?”

“I feel like I should,” he says, attention drawn back to his fake constellations. Or maybe they’re real. Maybe he is replicating the ones in the sky just above them right now. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t have the energy to hate. I don’t have the room for it. And I don’t hate you. I know too much—”

Connor stops himself, every part of his body coming to a freezing halt. 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Connor—”

“It’s nothing. I’m sorry,” he says. “I just—I mean I’ve gotten to know you. Giving you a second chance. Getting to know you as a deviant rather than a machine. It’s nice. It’s nice being able to make my own decisions and being able to…  _ allow  _ you that option.”

Gavin doesn’t want to let go of what Connor said.  _ I know too much.  _ He can’t be referring to the little time they’ve spent together. The year after he deviated, they barely spent any time together at all. Connor isolated himself. Talked mostly to Hank and did work around the DPD. Never even left to go on cases until the new year began. He didn’t even really befriend Tina on his own volition—she was the one squirming into his space, sinking her claws into him, not letting him go. Gavin never had the courage to do that. He couldn’t. Tina is the type of girl that loves to talk, loves to make friends. Worse than even him at flirting, but he rarely ever flirts with people with the same end goal that she does. She has one-night stands, but it isn’t the same. Gavin does it to fill a gap in his life, she does it to fill a bored night.

“Connor, what do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I just—I want to make up for things I did before. Be nice to people. Be kind. I don’t… I don’t think…” he trails off. “It’s hard to explain. It’s Cappuccino’s birthday. We should be having fun, right? Do you have any gifts for her?”

He doesn’t want to stop the conversation. The two of them have never really had a serious conversation. Gavin never even apologized to him for what he did. It’s always been filled with awkward small talk instead. Gavin’s interests dominating any topic mostly because Connor doesn’t do much besides focus on work and read novels that Gavin’s never really heard of or been interested in trying. Reading doesn’t consume enough of his physical restlessness. He needs to keep everything preoccupied. His hands on a controller and his brain focused on driving or fighting. Something that won’t let his thoughts wander.

And—

He used to read more often, too. Read as much as he could in the nights when his father would come home angry and lock them away in their rooms until the next morning. Hours upon hours spent forced away into the space waiting to see whether or not there would be violence. There was a bolt on the other side of his door. He used to try and break out, to sneak into the hallway late at night. He was caught, once, and the next night when his father installed the bolt on the other side, it woke him at four in the morning. He’d have to sneak out through his window, find the key to the front door hidden in the bushes underneath a ladybug shaped rock so he could squirrel away food and water.

Most of his time was spent doing homework and reading books he’d snuck away from school. He always associates them with those days, now. Days where he’d try and focus on words printed on a page rather than the screams and yells on the other side of the walls. They weren’t paper-thin. That’s what always scared him so much. The walls in the house were thick. He shouldn’t have been able to hear the yelling so clearly, but it was as if his father wanted to stand on the other side to make sure he heard every single word or hit he made.

“Yeah,” he says. “I do. It’s—It’s over there. You want to open it for her?”

Connor nods, trying his best to change the mood of the evening, but it difficult. Connor is good at getting him to smile again. Struggling with the tape on the wrapping paper, tossing the little hamster toy with the rattle inside of it towards Cappuccino. She paws at it, sniffs at it, walks away and Connor tries again and again to get her to interact with it. It makes Gavin smile, but it doesn’t make him forget. His thoughts so easily drift off to everything and anything that it’s hard not to be all consumed by something negative at any given point in the day.

And when Connor goes to leave an hour later when he checks the clock and sees how late it is and says that he should go, Gavin doesn’t want him to. Gavin sees him to the door, as if it isn’t two feet away, as if Connor wouldn’t know the way out. He lingers there, waiting for Connor to do something.

Gavin thinks it was a mistake that he didn’t let Connor kiss him. He thinks it’s a mistake if he did. He can’t win anymore. He can’t give himself what he wants without feeling guilty and he can’t leave it alone without feeling regretful. He is just in a constant battle of weighing the two.

Regret and guilt.

His entire life has been built around those two words.

“When is Latte’s birthday?”

“April.”

“Am I invited to her party?”

He nods, feels himself want to step forward into Connor’s space, the need to be just a little bit closer. They’re already too close. “Tina might be there. It won’t be as quiet as this one.”

“That’s alright,” Connor smiles. “I like Tina.”

“Of course you do.”

He doesn’t know why he said it like that, like he’s annoyed at the thought of the two of them being friends. Maybe because he knows that Connor likes him, maybe because he knows that Tina knows Gavin likes Connor. Maybe because he knows if the two ever find out they will force them together and he’s never quite sure if he could handle that. He feels broken. Wrong. Even if he wasn’t planning on killing himself in October, there would be little of him left that is strong enough or good enough to be worth wanting in a relationship.

Still.

He thinks of Connor, how his voice shook when he said that Gavin rejected him. He had. He had and he regrets it but he knows he would feel worse if Connor had kissed him because Gavin is like Tina in that way—he doesn’t let go when people come into his life. He holds onto them so tightly that he breaks them. 

He doesn’t want to break Connor.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Gavin.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow,” he says quietly. “Goodnight, Connor.”

Connor smiles, soft and sweet and a little bit heartbreaking. He reaches out and takes Gavin’s hand for a moment, squeezes it before letting it go, “Goodnight, Gavin.”


	3. March

[ID: Tina looking out the window drinking from a cup of coffee as the

sun rises outside the window on a foggy Detroit morning.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — ⅽ[ː̠̈ː̠̈ː̠̈] ͌

posted  **MARCH 2, 2040 **

——————————

“We haven’t talked in a while,” Tina says, bringing her legs up onto the couch, wrapping her arms around them. “Talk to me.”

“It’s been two days, Tina.”

“You didn’t answer any of my texts.”

No, he hadn’t. She had sent three in a row after he posted the picture of Cappuccino’s party and Connor had replied, she’d connected the dots. Asking him again and again if anything had happened between them. Gavin knows she wants to ask again, she’s looking at him in the way she always does when the conversation tips it’s way over into Connor territory.

“I’ve been busy.”

“With a new boyfriend?”

“Stop,” he says quietly. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he repeats. “If anything did, you’d be the first to know.”

Tina smiles, almost satisfied with his response. She believes Gavin—believes that he hasn’t started to methodically and carefully hide away every detail of his life from her. Shutting her out in little bits and pieces because it hurts too much to let her in anymore.

“You know Jericho is having the fundraiser next week? The DPD is looking for people to go as security. Some of them are supposed to be undercover, pretend to be guests?”

“What are you getting at, Tina?”

“Go with him.”

“Go with who?”

“Connor, fuckwad. Create a fake cover story… you’re his wealthy husband but you’re skeptical of whether or not deviants are a threat. Fish out any freaks that are there to hurt them. Or, you know, just spend some time with Connor pretending to work. Get paid for flirting.”

He grimaces, looking away from her. None of that sounds appealing even in the slightest. He doesn’t like crowds and he doesn’t like people flaunting their wealth, either. Gavin would rather stay at the station and handle the dozens of phonecalls and random cases in the night. Sides—

Rich people, at a fundraiser for androids?

Elijah might be there, and that isn’t a risk he’s willing to take. He isn’t lucky enough to not see him, even if Eli hasn’t left his home in years. Gavin doesn’t even know where he lives. He might not even be in the Detroit area anymore, but he was always very fond of this city. Romanticizing it late at night when the two of them talked about running away where their father couldn’t find them. That was before he left. When he was still just a small child without even the faintest idea that one of them would ever have the wealth to do so. It was before their mother died and it was long before Eli abandoned him.

“I’d rather not.”

“Well, you know he’s going, right? Him and Markus are friends.”

“He’s not friends with Markus,” Gavin says, but he realizes he doesn’t actually know if they are.

He’s never heard Connor talk about anyone that doesn’t work at the DPD, and even then it’s a selective few. Connor is one of the few people that doesn’t mind talking with Fowler and even if the only person he spends time with outside of work is Tina, he will still sit by Chris’ desk during his break and talk about stupid things. Gavin overhears them, sometimes, talking about the weather. Something they both manage to find interesting. Sometimes Chris gives him book recommendations and the next day, he’ll see the paperback beaten up and dog-eared on Connor’s desk.

Markus could very well be Connor’s friend.

_ Shit. _

He doesn’t like it. Gavin feels guilty for feeling so jealous. Jealous of Markus for being able to spend time with him. Jealous of Markus for looking the way he does. Every picture of him that Gavin’s seen Markus is like a model. Perfectly posed like he’s in a movie. And it’s not a leap to assume that his personality would be more attractive than Gavin’s. He knows how he is. His heart is blackened and dead.

It shouldn’t matter, but he gets this weird feeling his stomach at the thought of them talking to each other.

It shouldn’t matter, because nothing will happen between them.

And yet, Gavin is still foolishly affected. He wants Tina to leave. He has this overwhelming need to cry about it like he’s a child that will scream about anything and everything. At every wound no matter how minor.

“Maybe I’ll go,” he says quietly, interrupting something that Tina’s saying. He doesn’t know what it is anymore. He’s a terrible friend, not listening to her words when she has spent thousands of night listening to him repeat the same thing over and over again. “If it’ll make you happy.”

“You look good in a tux,” she says. “Connor will fall in love with you the second he sees you.”

  
  


[ID: A picture of a snowy street, looking back towards buildings and houses,

a trail of footprints leading up to the viewer.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — I’m going to miss the snow.

posted  **MARCH 2, 2040 **

**lt.sumo** I won’t.

|  **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo But Sumo will!

——————————————

Connor doesn't want winter to end. He likes the look of the trees with their bare branches and the way they look when they're lightly dusted with snow. He likes the bright white and the way the world looks clean and the feeling of being bundled up in coats and gloves and hats.

He'll miss the snow and the winter. He won't be pleased by the oncoming summer. Always feeling like his insides are too warm. Overheating and needing to stop and rest more than he'd like to.

But last year, Hank had mentioned turning the oppressively small backyard into a garden. it was an offhand comment, one he doesn't think Hank ever intended Connor to get serious about, but he had. Just after Halloween he'd started to research plants. Ones that could survive here. What it would take to keep them alive.

It's the only reason he's excited for winter to come to an end. To create new life from the remnants.

  
  


**MARCH 4, 2040**

"Are you going, Gavin?" Connor asks. "To the fundraiser?"

"Fuck no."

Connor smiles, despite feeling a little disappointed with his response. "Not your scene?"

"No. Yours?"

"No," he sighs. "But I'm required, and it will be nice to see Markus again." 

"Oh,” Gavin asks. “You're going for Markus?"

"Technically. Why, does that change your mind about it?"

He watches Gavin smile in his not-quite-real way. The way he smiles when he's making fun of someone and he hides it behind his coffee cup. "Doubtful. I've no reason to go, and Markus isn't going to change that."

"Could I?" Connor asks, feeling daring and stupid. Wondering if everything in the last few months could ever amount to enough for Gavin to accept him if he asked him out.

He's rejected Connor once. He'll likely do it again, but it doesn't stop him from wanting to still  _ try. _

"A hundred bucks each hour I'm there and you got a deal. That's about it."

"I'm not going to pay you."

"Sorry, then. It's the only bribe I'll accept."

  
  


**MARCH 7, 2040**

He is running into the same problem he did on Valentine’s Day. Not knowing what to do but knowing he wants to give Gavin something. It is harder this time. The gift needs to be a bribe to make Gavin do something Connor knows he doesn’t want to do. It has to be better than a mug with a cute cat face embossed on the metal. It can’t be another pair of gloves or another candle. It has to be something better than that.

Connor tries to think of the things he knows that Gavin likes. Hello Kitty, maybe. There is a shop in the city that sells treats shaped like the characters and Connor saw them on his socks once, poking up over his shoes when he was retying the laces after Tina had scolded him for ten minutes about tripping over them.

He considers giving him coffee. Or things for his cat. Toys or treats or sweaters for Tina to wrestle them into. Connor even considers getting him a real winter coat, despite the fact that it’s starting to come to an end now. He must’ve been freezing the last few months, even with the scarves and the hats and the new gloves.

He thinks of other things too. Things that would be more applicable to Valentine’s Day that he had previously rejected. Chocolates or flowers that Connor doesn’t think mean enough that Gavin would reconsider going to the fundraiser.

He doesn’t know what to do. He’s at a loss for words. Finds himself instead sitting at his desk and scribbling the words  _ I’d prefer it if you were there  _ and then tossing it in the trash because it sounds so childish to him when he puts the words in order like that. Saying them out loud or writing them or ever having Gavin know that he just wants to see him outside of work again. It doesn’t happen enough. It makes him feel as though their friendship is contingent upon the workplace. And maybe it is.

But he doesn’t want it to be and he doesn’t think it has to stay that way.

  
  


**MARCH 8, 2040**

Connor catches him off guard with it like it’s a noose or something. Slipping it around his neck and pulling him to a stop and working so quickly that it takes Gavin a minute to even realize what he’s doing.

“It’s not a gift,” Connor says. “Therefore, it’s not a bribe. I’m letting you borrow it.”

“A tie?”

“A very special tie. And only on the promise that you’ll go.”

“How is it special?”

Connor meets his eyes, hands still lingering on the fabric of his shirt. “Because I said it was.”

“Oh, well then, if you  _ say so–” _

“Are you going?” Connor asks.

Gavin wants to say yes, because the way Connor is asking him, the persistence behind his questions, the way his hands are still resting against his chest, makes him feel as though Connor is asking him to go with him. Like something special. As though it isn’t for work. Maybe Tina is right. Maybe he could go and they could pretend to be rich people and just have the time to be beside one another. Lie and get paid for it. Go on a date during a case.

But therein lies the problem that it always does. A date leads to more, and Gavin can’t have more.

_ They  _ can’t have more.

“How special is the tie?” Gavin asks.

“It was made and exists for the sole purpose of you going to the Jericho fundraiser.”

“Every last stitch?”

“Every last stitch.”

“And if I say no?”

Connor seems to think about this for a moment before his hand moves back to the tie again, holding onto it tightly for a moment in a way that makes Gavin wonder if he’s going to pull him closer and kiss him and what Gavin would do if he did. If he would push him away and reject him like last time.

“I may have to resort to physical violence.”

“You’re going to choke me with it?”

Connor tightens the tie around his neck, nods a tiny bit. “But I would accept your answer, if you chose to stay here.”

“But you want me to go.”

“Yes, Gavin, I want you to go.”

_ Oh.  _ It’s different assuming things versus hearing them out loud. It affects him in a different way. Cuts past a layer of logic that had him ready to say no again, to stay because he thinks going will be a mistake. A step in the wrong direction. Pushing himself to feeling guilty and selfish for ever caring about someone like Connor when he is who he is.

“Okay,” Gavin whispers. “I’ll go.”

He wonders how selfish and guilty he should feel watching Connor smile like that. He wonders if it’s okay to be happy that he made someone else happy. He wonders if he is allowed to keep Connor here and not let him walk away, but he can’t give himself an answer before Connor is already nodding, telling him he’ll see him at the fundraiser, then disappearing once more to his desk. Returning to work like Gavin should. Not standing still, dumbstruck and in awe.

  
  


[ID: A cropped photo of a girl that is still very clearly Tina Chen. She wears a white gown, beaded and expensive looking, almost bridal-esque.]

**CONNOR_RK800 ** — |_・) Undercover. 

posted  **MARCH 10, 2040 **

**tina_tot ** (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

**crayolamarkus ** It was nice seeing you again.

|  **connor_rk800** @crayolamarkus You too! ♥

——————————

He doesn’t want to be cheesy. He doesn’t want to be like in the movies when the people see the other one just before prom and their mouth falls open and they tell them they look amazing. He doesn’t want to be like that. But he can’t help but think that Gavin and Tina look good. He can’t stop himself from smiling when they make their way into the new Jericho headquarters together. Gavin, wearing the tie that Connor had given him. A soft black with the vaguest of gray details. From afar, they look like strange squiggles but he knows up close they’re a pattern of cats with happy faces and pointy ears. Classy, if no one really looked too close. He likes Tina’s dress–carefully chosen and picked, according to her. Muted grays and soft whites with layers of lace laying over top, glitter details and beads placed carefully. He doesn’t know where she got it from, but it fits her perfectly.

“You didn’t change much,” Tina says, making her way over to him. Gavin is trailing behind, like he’s using her as a shield. Eyes darting around like he’s waiting to punch whoever decides to talk to him first. “Same jacket you wear to work, isn’t it?”

“It’s a little different,” he replies. “The pants are different, too.”

“How exciting,” Gavin says flatly. “Shall we talk about fashion for the rest of the night? I’ll get us some champagne. Next topic: Dior versus Chanel, who did it better?”

“Shut up,” Tina says quietly, hitting him lightly against the chest. “Don’t act like you don’t talk about things I find insufferable.”

“Like what?”

Tina looks to him, her face going blank, like she can’t think of anything, or, maybe the only things she can think of she doesn’t want to say aloud. There’s a dozen things said between them in that moment. The two of them are like twins in movies. Telepathic. Able to communicate anything. Connor thinks if he didn’t know nearly everything there was about their pasts, they could be siblings. Half or adopted or even foster. He thinks they must’ve grown up together, with the way they know one another.

“I’m going to go talk to Markus,” Connor says quietly. “I hope you two enjoy yourselves?”

“You too.”

  
  


**MARCH 10, 2040**

He doesn’t like that it makes him jealous. The idea of Connor being around Markus. He doesn’t like the fact that it makes him want to reach forward and grab his hand and ask him to stay and not leave. He doesn’t like the idea of being this possessive over another person. Maybe it’s because he knows what type of person Markus is and the way he looks. Maybe it’s because he can so easily turn it back on himself and locate every part of himself that’s wrong.

Gavin doesn’t say anything. He listens to Tina tease him about Connor walking away and he eventually figures out how to detach himself from her side with an excuse that he’s going to go find a caterer to steal food from. Jericho is smaller than he expected it to be, but it’s still crowded with people. An upgrade from the ship they used to be on. Not quite as nice as the Manfred mansion, but it is bigger. Pictures of the previous home of Markus’ life flooding magazines after Carl Manfred’s death.

He spies where Connor is on his way through the crowd. Over by Markus before quickly separating from the small group and heading off by himself. Gavin’s feet move on their own, abandoning his hunt for food in favor of talking to him. It’s the only reason he came here, even if he regretted it the moment he stepped through the door.

“Having fun?” he asks, meeting up beside Connor where he stands by a bookshelf.

“Not really,” he says quietly. “Did you know that they took all these books from Carl’s place and brought them here?”

“Did they?”

“Markus told me,” Connor nods, his voice still low, like it’s stuck on the crowded bookshelves. When Gavin looks to them, there doesn’t appear to be anything special about them. Old dusty hardcovers and paperbacks of classics that he was forced to read in school. Maybe their value lies in how old of an edition it is. “It’s nice.”

“You want to have a library of your own someday?”

Connor smiles and looks to him finally, “I don’t know. It sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really read.

“A library?”

“Yeah. Maybe you’d prefer to fill your shelves with games.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Of course not, Gavin,” he says quietly, taking a step closer to him. “You think I care if you prefer video games over books–”

“Gavin,” Tina hisses, moving towards him, grabbing his hand and pulling him away, her voice lowered to a whisper. “I’m really sorry I have to take you away from what was probably the most heartfelt moment you’ve ever experienced in your entire life, but I have a problem.”

“A problem?”

“Yes. Help me. Please. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.”

“Can I call in this favor later?”

“Gavin. Do you really want to work out the specifics? I think there’s a lawyer here, so if you  _ really  _ want, we can get a contract drawn up and–”

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll help.”

  
  


**MARCH 10, 2040**

It takes him a moment to realize that Tina has stolen him away. One second he’s there, and the next he’s gone, being dragged away without even a look back to him. Connor hesitates there for a moment, wishing he hadn’t come here. Wishing he’d found a way to stay at home. He’d said his hellos to Markus and the others. He properly met Josh and Simon beyond the few moments in the church over a year ago. He’d been able to talk to North for longer than a second. He can leave now, if he really wanted. Nobody would probably notice his absence.

But he watches Tina pull Gavin away and he decides to stay. Decides that if he can manage it, maybe he can steal another moment alone with him. Alone in a crowded room full of people taking over what little space of Jericho’s headquarters they have. How many rich people are here, wandering the room, ready to spend money? How many of them are more likely here just to gawk at the idea of androids and their revolution like it’s entertainment versus reality?

Connor doesn’t like standing here alone. He follows them, weaving through the crowd, offering apologies to people that he recognizes from magazine covers that had decided to sell their integrity for fake headlines and photoshopped pictures in an attempt for more money. If someone is rich or famous or both, they’re here.

Like it’s the red carpet.

He feels a stab in his abdomen, forcing his way to where Tina and Gavin stand, stumbling beside them.

“N-No,” Tina is saying quickly, her voice strange and weird. High pitched. “I’m not–He’s–”

“Tina?” he says, bumping into her shoulder, looking away from her face to the face of a startled blonde android. He recognizes her. Easily. In a heartbeat. She isn’t the same one he shot–that’d be impossible, even if she was put back together again–and she isn’t one of the ones at Kamski’s place, he doesn’t think. He thinks he’d recognize one of them. But it’s her. One of the models. One of the RT600s.

_ Chloe. _

“Connor is his husband,” Tina says quickly. “I’m not–We would never be together. I hate Gavin, if you ask me. I don’t know how Connor puts up with him.”

“Husband?” he asks, but Tina is already pushing him, replacing where she was by shoving Connor towards Gavin’s side. He knows what she’s doing, he just doesn’t know  _ why.  _ “R-Right. We’re married. Of course. Since last December.”

“On Christmas,” Tina says, rolling her eyes. “If you can believe. Real asshole move, in my opinion. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but still.”

“Tina–”

“Can I talk to you?” Connor says quietly, reaching for Gavin’s hand. “Privately?”

“Please,” Gavin whispers. “Get me away from her. I think she’s high.”

Connor pulls him away further, away from Tina as she nervously talks to the android. He tries to keep his eyes away from them, to focus on Gavin. He can’t remember if he had anything important to say now. If there was a reason for him trying to get Gavin alone for any other reason than to be alone.

“Do you want to dance?” he asks.

“Not really.”

“We are… husbands, you know.” Connor laughs a little. “You should dance with me.”

“There’s barely anyone else dancing, Con, and even if we were together–”

“You wouldn’t dance with me?”

“Don’t fucking look at me with those puppy dog eyes.”

Connor doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t think he’s pouting. He doesn’t think he’s putting on a begging face. But maybe he is.

“Nobody will try to talk to us if we’re dancing. Tina can’t pull you away if we’re together.”

“I don’t think that’s true. She’s a vicious girl.”

“Please?” Connor asks, and this time he does try. Try to get Gavin to see him like a  _ puppy dog.  _ Begging for treats or a walk.

“Five minutes. Then we stop.”

“Okay.”

  
  


[ID: Taken at the Jericho fundraiser—a rather low-quality picture (likely due to the zoom and/or lighting) of Connor and Gavin dancing together.]

**TINA_TOT** — idiots.

posted ** MARCH 10, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** delete this

|  **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed no.

——————————

He doesn’t like it because he wants it.

He doesn’t like that Connor leads. He doesn’t like the feeling of Connor’s hand on his waist, he doesn’t like the way their hands fit together. He doesn’t like that Connor pulls him to stand a little closer than he should because they’re apparently, now, married. As though the cover story would spread past Tina and Chloe. As if anyone else would know. Gavin thinks Connor must know that, too, that he must jump to the same conclusions, that they must be doing this for another reason.

“What happened with Tina?” Connor asks, his voice quiet, like he’s whispering a secret to him.

“She met a girl she thought was cute. She went a little rabid.”

“Rabid? She seemed more nervous to me.”

He shrugs, not really caring whether or not his word choice was correct, “She gets… weird when she likes someone.”

“Oh. That why she decided we were married?”

“Probably. I don’t know. The girl asked if I was Tina’s boyfriend and she panicked.”

“You didn’t seem to be helping her.”

“No,” he replies. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Tina wouldn’t stop talking.”

“You could’ve interrupted her.”

“Maybe. Doesn’t matter now. Times past.”

“Gavin?”

“What?”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

Gavin glances up, not really noticing until now that he was making such an effort to avoid his gaze. Scared for some reason that if he looked at Connor’s face something might change. And for a moment, he realizes how stupid that is. To be looking at the others in the room, at the wallpaper or the books on the shelves. To be searching the crowd for people like Tina or Markus. Faces he might recognize from the station. The fleeting fear that he might find Elijah among them. Terrified beyond belief that the first time he sees him again in years will be here, dancing with Connor.

But Gavin realizes abandoning his hunt for the people he knows and looking at Connor is even worse. It’s the reminder of why he came here. Of how much he’s been missing someone holding him like this. A hand on his waist that he hates because it reminds him of how long it’s been since someone touched him this tenderly. Even longer if he forgets that the last time it happened was a month ago, with Connor.

“You’re hideous,” he answers. “Can’t stand you.”

“Liar.”

“Liar?” Gavin asks. “When have I lied?”

Connor shakes his head, “I don’t know… you did say you had a boyfriend last month. What happened to him?”

“Broke up when me and you decided to get married, I guess.”

“Right,” Connor says quietly. “Maybe you should’ve told me.”

“Maybe.”

He waits. Tries not to look away from Connor. Tries to keep his breathing normal. Tries to keep his thoughts from flipping through a thousand topics.

“If you knew I lied about him, why didn’t you kiss me?”

Connor stops, their slow movements made still, “You said no.”

“I lied.”

“You lied about the boyfriend. I still took the rejection as the truth. I wouldn’t kiss you if I thought you didn’t want me to, and you told me no.”

He wishes, right now, that Connor hadn’t listened. He wishes, maybe, that it hadn’t happened to begin with. That if there was nothing between them at all, or maybe if it entirely existed in Gavin’s head, that he could steal a kiss right now and sweep it under the rug as for their fake undercover identities and be able to have that and only that. But he can’t. He knows if he says anything, even in a joking manner, Connor will know he wants to kiss him and it won’t be forgotten after tonight, it will be remembered for as long as Gavin is alive.

What’s more humiliating than Connor knowing how much he wants him?

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“If I asked you again, would you still have a boyfriend, Gavin?”

_ Jesus. _

He doesn’t like knowing this. That Connor likes him. That Connor wants him. Maybe he thought in the last month Connor’s niceness would convert over to pure platonic friendship instead of whatever mess they are in now. Maybe he’s leaping through too many hoops and trying to come up with too many ways to deny it all. But it was never really a matter of believing that Connor didn’t like him. He just never thought Connor could love him, and he never thought he’d be capable of putting Connor in that situation.

“No, but–” Gavin sighs. “You’d have to go on a date with me, you know. You can’t just… you can’t just kiss me and pretend it never happened.”

“I wouldn’t.”

He doesn’t know why it’s so hard to believe. He doesn’t know why he’s even said it. A requirement like he won’t feel guilty and awful when the day comes because he always does.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t know why he keeps doing this. Why he keeps putting himself in situations that he knows will just make it worse. He keeps promising himself that he’s going to change. That he’s going to shut people out a little bit better. That he won’t run straight to Connor the second he smiles or laughs.

“Promise?”

“I promise, Gavin.”

He hates it he loves it,

He doesn’t know how to feel he just wants Connor to hold him a little closer and close his eyes and forget the world for a moment because it’s all just getting to be a little too much and he can’t handle it anymore he just wants to rest he just wants to–

He just wants to—

“Gavin?”

“Kiss me, then,” he whispers.

And so Connor does. It is hesitant at first. The hand at his side moving to lift Gavin’s chin up. Leaning forward like he’s waiting for Gavin to change his mind before it happens, but he doesn’t. He thinks he needed this. Maybe he ruined it by telling Connor to do it, maybe he ruined it by agreeing to the date, but he needed Connor to be the one that kissed him first. It felt like an impossibility to do it the other way around. Like now he is putting the blame on Connor’s shoulders if anything happens, because Connor kissed him first. Like it will erase any responsibility that Gavin might have if things turn badly and he knows they will.

But his thoughts start to disappear because Connor is kissing him and he’s wanted this for so long he doesn’t remember a time before Connor appeared in his life that he didn’t want him. He doesn’t believe in love at first sight and he loathes the idea of soulmates but he remembers, at some point, when he saw Connor and he knew he wanted him. That inevitably, Connor would feel like the unobtainable person that he could never have but would always want.

And now Connor is kissing him and Gavin is kissing him back and he thinks they should probably stop. They’re in a public space, even if they’re pretending they’re married for whoever Tina and Chloe have decided to tell the lie to next, if they decide. He doesn’t like PDA. He doesn’t like the fact someone else might be watching, but the thoughts come and go the longer Connor holds onto him.

He’s terrified that if he breaks away, Connor will let him go. That he’ll be alone again. That Connor will walk away like all that ever really mattered between them was one kiss. Like he’s back in high school and people are placing bets on who they could get to agree to a date and then earning twenty bucks when someone agrees to it. He remembers people dating each other just so they could have sex with them like it was some kind of achievement. Like Connor is doing that to him now.

Gavin pulls away and he clings onto him, scared that he’s going to walk away but needing to breathe, hiding away against his shoulder only hoping Connor doesn’t push him away to keep the integrity of their cover intact.

“Gavin?”

  
  


**MARCH 10, 2040**

“Connor?”

It takes a moment for the voice to register. He feels Gavin grow still next to him. Completely, as though he’s refusing to breathe for a moment. And Connor does the same a second after. As if he’s the human and it takes his brain a second to catch up to the moment. He looks away from the floor where he had his gaze focused on the soft beige pattern of the tiles, feeling Gavin push away from him a little before pulling him back, like he’s shielding Connor from the voice.

“Eli?”

_ Eli. _

“I didn’t expect to see you,” Kamski says, and there’s a small smile on his face. It almost looks genuine, but in a twisted sort of way. Connor doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kamski as something other than inherently wrong in some manner. Like a distorted reflection. Something intrinsically  _ strange  _ about him in a way Connor can’t name. He doesn’t know if he’s forgetting the word or if he’s trying to tip-toe around the idea of calling him something cruel, and he wonders, briefly, if he’s allowed to. If he’s allowed to think of Kamski as a sort of monster for what he had done to Connor and to the RT600 at his place. Carrying on like there wasn’t a dead body next to his pool.

Maybe she wasn’t considered real. She hadn’t been to Connor at the time, but now he sees her face in his dreams and he wonders about the life she could’ve had if he had spared her.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t see you,” Gavin replies. His hand finds Connor’s again, holding onto it tight. Enough that it almost hurts, but Connor doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t try to pull away because his grip on Gavin’s is just as painful. Like if he lets go somehow Kamski will get to him. He doesn’t know why he’s so scared of him. He shouldn’t be. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d say hello,” he shrugs. “I did create him after all.”

For a moment, Connor thinks Kamski is talking about him. Saying hello to Connor in the middle of all this. And then he sees Kamski’s gaze flick over to Markus standing next to the other Jericho members, settling on the RK200 watching over the event like he wants nothing more than to run away.

And then Connor remembers.

He remembers Markus specifically being a gift to Carl. He remembers wondering why and how and when. He remembers looking on Kamski’s walls trying to see if any of the art belonged to Carl. Trying to make a connection during a time when he thought he was supposed to know everything.

There was one. Muted dark colors. A face brushed away like the identity was to never be known. Blue on their cheek, like someone had held him there and left a bruise. Or maybe it was Thirium. Maybe it was to replicate an android’s hand holding his face.

Connor doesn’t know when he determined that the man in the portrait had to be Kamski. He just felt like it was. A feeling like he couldn’t separate the two. He doesn’t know why. He stopped trying to question some of these confusing feelings in his head. The more he questions them the worse he feels. They get jumbled and lost. They make  _ him  _ feel jumbled and lost.

“I was under the impression you weren’t very fond of the deviants,” Connor says. 

Kamski turns his attention to him, the smile still on his face, the same creepy undertones that make him want to run, “I was under the impression you weren’t either.”

He doesn’t know what to say, he feels like someone has caught his tongue and sliced it off. He feels like he is scrambling for answers.  _ You feel no empathy.  _ He remembers it too vividly. Kamski saying it like it’s on repeat in his head. Telling him that he wasn’t a deviant and at the time it felt like a relief. Like his creator saying it made it true. Like now nothing was stopping him from continuing his task, his mission.

“T-Things change.”

Kamski’s eyes move to their hands, where they’re still held tight as if they’re glued together at their sides between them, “Apparently they do.”

Gavin reacts strangely. Pulling his hand away from Connor’s fast but stepping in front of him like a shield. Somehow both denying and confirming whatever it is that Kamski is insinuating. Or not insinuating. Guessing right. Wouldn’t he be guessing correctly, if Gavin promised him a date? He doesn’t know. Maybe it’s stupid to assume that one date would mean more than that.

And how much of a guess can it be, if they were just kissing? In front of everyone? And Connor had almost hated it because it had been on display in front of the crowd of people at this stupid fundraiser and he wishes it had been somewhere else. That it had purely belonged to the two of them and now somehow it belonged to Kamski, too, like this interaction would forever taint the moment before when he had felt happy and content and was ready to spend the rest of the time here making excuses to be on the dance floor with Gavin so they wouldn’t be interrupted.

But they were.

By  _ Kamski _ .

Kamski, who he knows is Gavin’s brother. Half-brother. He knows everything between the two of them, for the most part. It is easy to guess and understand what happened. It’s easy to connect the dots. It’s easy to assume. He doesn’t know if what he knows is the truth but he knows that Gavin doesn’t like him and he doesn’t want to be anywhere near Kamski.

_ Eli.  _ He’d called him Eli. Connor can’t connect the nickname with his face. He can only connect the name  _ Kamski.  _ As if a first name never existed with him. Different from Gavin, who rarely felt like anyone other than Gavin to him, except when he was teasing and calling him Detective Reed, because he knows Gavin hates it and it’s funny to watch his face smush up like he’s ready to throw a tantrum.

Idiot.

The thought is a momentary relief before he’s reminded of where he is. Gavin and Kamski have started to talk about something, and he doesn’t know what it is. It’s like he’s left the conversation. Checked out and gone somewhere else. He doesn’t know how long this back and forth has gone, but it’s angry in a polite way. The two of them fighting without raising their voices. Connor gives the credit to Kamski–who seems to word everything in a way that would feel embarrassing to snap back at, but he gives credit to Gavin, too. He knows how difficult it is for him sometimes. The ability to lash out viciously and never even apologize later when he’s seen that he’s overreacted.

“Tina,” he says quietly, his voice not quite working properly. Quiet and muffled. “Gavin, you should go find Tina.”

Gavin looks over to him, like he’s startled that Connor is still there, “Right.”

And Gavin is gone without much else added to the conversation. Connor tries to reach out and grab his hand as if he’s going to keep him from leaving even though he was the one that gave him the excuse to leave this conversation, but Gavin is too fast. Disappearing through the crowd as though he’s fighting the urge to run.

“Connor–”

“I’m leaving,” he says quietly. He can’t speak properly anymore. He doesn’t know how to. He doesn’t know what happened. It’s like he snapped. Broke in half when his thoughts spiraled out of control. Not even that out of control. He can trace the path it made easily. There weren’t strange leaps leaving him in unknown territory. He knew where he was, but it was almost like Connor was slapped or shoved with the sudden reminder that the two of them are related. So vastly different.

And for a brief moment, he wonders what it would’ve been like if he was on the other side. If Gavin and Kamski had flipped places. Would it be Gavin Kamski, standing across from him, looking at him like he’s wrong and out of place? Would it be Elijah, running off, trying to find a savior from whatever happened in the unknown length of time Connor had stopped existing in the present?

“I’m leaving,” he repeats, because his feet haven’t moved from the spot and he forces himself to turn away, to take a step in the opposite direction, but he feels a hand on his arm keeping him there.

“Do you love him?”

The question throws him off. Makes Connor more imbalanced than he was before. For a moment, he thinks it might be a physical thing, as if he’ll fall over onto the floor and people will look over and see him sitting there on the tiles confused and lost.

But it isn’t.

He’s here, rooted to the spot, looking back at Kamski and not knowing how to answer the question.

“Yes,” he decides, because he knows he loves Gavin. He knows he loves Gavin like he loves Tina and Hank and Chris. That it would kill him if they left his life, if they disappeared completely. That it would destroy him if anything happened to them. But it isn’t what Kamski’s asking him. He’s asking Connor if he’s  _ in  _ love with Gavin, and the truth is he doesn’t know. He knows he cares for him in a romantic way. He knows he wishes Gavin was still here, that he could rewind and still have Gavin in his arms or the moment before he kissed him and they could run away instead of staying where Elijah might find them.

But Connor can’t say all that out loud, so he repeats himself again, finding himself incapable of doing little else, “Yes. Of course I do.”

“You’re an idiot,” Kamski replies. “You know that?”

He knows. Gavin has teased him about all the things he doesn’t quite grasp. The desire for humans to have pets and plants, even if he can feel the same way. He doesn’t understand the desire that some people have leading them on a life centered completely around cooking and food or traveling or anything, really. Some days he just doesn’t understand a single thing and feels at a loss because once, he was a constant and not a variable. Once, he didn’t wake up in the mornings because he had missions and tasks and cases to handle. He didn’t have time to think about things like music or fashion or books and now there is too much time but also not enough and it overwhelms him.

“Maybe you are,” Connor says, pulling his arm away. “If you think I’m stupid for loving him, maybe you’re the idiot.”

“I don’t–”

“You don’t care about him,” he says, stepping away from him, suddenly feeling the same sense of urgency to run. To pretend he needs to find Tina, too. But the truth isn’t that he would need to save her from whatever situation she is in now, it’s just that he needs her to save him for a moment. “You don’t love him, do you?”

“He’s my brother.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Kamski looks at him and his face is blank, twisting fast into something Connor hasn’t seen him wear before, but the anger is so familiar. He looks a lot like Gavin when he’s pissed off. More than Connor expected. They’re only half-brothers, but sometimes they could be twins.

“It’s more complicated than that. You wouldn’t understand. You don’t have any family.”

Maybe not. Maybe he never will. Maybe he won’t live to have someone fall in love with him properly and maybe he won’t ever want to get married or have children. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. He just knows that Kamski didn’t answer his question, just jumping away from it.

“I have to go,” he says. “I don’t want to–”

“Talk to me?”

Connor shakes his head, and he starts to walk away. He doesn’t really know if he was going to lie to Kamski. He thinks he was going to tell the truth. He thinks he was going to outright say he never wanted to see Kamski ever again and only stopped himself because it sounded too cruel. Maybe Gavin is rubbing off on him. The nicer Gavin is, the more cruel Connor is. As if they’re meeting in the middle. Or maybe it’s just Kamski. There is something about his face that makes Connor want to run in the opposite direction.

He can hear Kamski calling his name, but he isn’t following him. The conversation is over now. Done with. He just wants to find Gavin again.

  
  


**MARCH 10, 2040**

Gavin finds Tina by accident. He didn’t even think about actually looking for her. He just needed to get out. He always thought it was so stupid in books or movies when people said they needed fresh air. Not as an excuse to get away from the crowd, but to actually breathe in fresh air. Like it was different somehow. It doesn’t make any sense to him, how it can really clear your thoughts. But it does, Gavin realizes, when he steps out into the night, he is hit by the cold breeze, descending down the front steps, everything hits him all at once.

It’s not in a good way. It’s in the worst fucking way possible. It makes everything hurt more. Eli’s words ricocheting around his head again and again. Reminding him that he isn’t the good brother or the smart brother or the one that was even wanted. He was the one shoved aside and hated and hurt repeatedly. Gavin wasn’t the golden boy. He wasn’t the savior of the family. Kamski was, even if he abandoned them the second he could.

Tina finds him standing out on the steps and he can barely get the words out of his mouth before he’s disappearing again. Asking her to tell Connor he had to go. Not providing an excuse, just needing to get away. Running as fast as he can manage down the street. Everything is crashing down on Gavin again like he’s a child. Like Eli’s just left him, like Eli’s just broken the promise that they’d made, the pact of the two of them running away and being safe from their father and on the same note it feels like his father’s alive again, it feels like the kiss he shared with Connor was a bigger mistake than he originally thought because if his father’s alive and he finds out–

He can’t breathe. He’s choking on air and trying to make himself not completely lose control of himself but he thinks he’s about to lose it completely. Nothing makes sense anymore and the only thing Gavin can do, the only little bit of control he has over himself, is not screaming despite the fact he wants to. He’s crying like a baby, brushing tears away every five seconds. He can hardly see and all he wants is to be alone in his apartment with his cats who might look at him with a worry that he’s breaking but at least he’ll be there with them and he won’t feel so alone and he won’t feel so guilty that he’ll be dumping emotional baggage onto someone like Tina again.

But Gavin also wants to turn around, he wants Connor to find him before he leaves. He wants Connor to hold him and tell him it’s okay even if Connor doesn’t know what’s wrong. Gavin just  _ wants  _ him. He wants to stop feeling like he’s the worst person alive. He wants someone to remind him and tell him he’s worth being alive and that there are redeeming qualities about him but he knows even if that were to happen, even if Connor told him those things, Gavin would never believe it. But for a moment he would. For a moment he would have a few seconds that would remind him why he hasn’t killed himself quite yet. That maybe there is some type of fate in the world keeping him alive still. That maybe that’s why when he slit his wrists or swallowed a bunch of pills or spent nights upon nights holding a gun to his head that there’s a reason it never worked.

Gavin doesn’t think that there is. He thinks he’s just a failure. That the reason nothing ever works out in his favor is because he’s shitty at everything he does. That he’s the worst, and not in the teasing way that Tina says it to him, but in the same way his father used to tell him. Screaming and throwing things and leaving him bloody and broken.

And that’s how he feels now. Like his insides have been scraped cleaned. Emptied out and filled up again with old memories. Left on the side of the road a few streets away from the fundraiser where no one will find him, crying and trying to keep himself quiet so nobody, not even a stranger on the street, would ever think to ask him if he’s okay.

Because he isn’t. And this was stupid. Everything is so fucking stupid and pointless. He doesn’t know why he tries.

  
  


**MARCH 11, 2040**

It’s barely after midnight when Connor calls for the tenth time. Another text lighting up his screen a moment after. Asking Gavin if he’s alright. If everything’s okay. Where he went and what happened. Gavin doesn’t reply. He swipes away the notifications and deletes the texts, pretending that it didn’t exist. Concealing evidence for tomorrow when he’ll wake up and have to do his best to file away the memories and move on.

It isn’t an easy task, but he’s used to it. He’s gotten more and more skilled at pretending that Elijah Kamski isn’t his brother. Maybe not the best. There is still room for improvement, but he doesn’t care. There’s no use spending more energy on this than necessary. There are very little days in his life that he’s reminded he has a brother, that he had a father or a mother. He wasn’t expecting to be reminded again until July, but he can handle this. He can fold it away smaller and smaller still. It will take some time. A few weeks, maybe, a few days if he’s lucky. But it will be a lot longer than a few hours after a party, and he doesn’t look forward to the moment when Connor decides it’s a topic they should discuss. Everyone always wants to discuss it.

_ What was it like, growing up with him? _

Gavin doesn’t know. He rarely remembers his childhood being unique because Elijah was his brother. He remembers the bruises and the punches and the slaps across his face. He remembers seeing his mother cry and promising him over and over again that their father would change this time. That she loved him and could see hope.

He spent his adulthood dealing with the fact his mother didn’t really believe that, that her suicide note spelled it out crystal clear that she killed herself because she felt guilty she was putting them in so much pain. Not running away with them, not helping him be safe. _He doesn’t hate his mother._ He understands why she killed herself. Escaping the pain permanently is better than enduring it for the years after. He still feels it, sometimes, when he reads a case file. The pain of old bruises coming back again and bones feeling like they’ve rebroken. 

He’s also spent the last twenty years of his life trying to promise himself two things:

One – he will not become his father. Violence is in his blood. It was the way he was raised. Gavin hasn’t been safe since he was born. He doesn’t remember a moment in his life where he was screaming or being screamed at. He doesn’t have a single memory where someone wasn’t hurting him or he was hurting them. He doesn’t always have faith in this promise to himself, but Gavin tries his absolute best. Turning his violence into words that can be brushed aside a little easier than a bruise, but even he knows that isn’t true. But it’s easier to pretend. It’s easier to condense it down this way.

Two – he will not put someone in the same situation as his mother. Convinced they love someone when they don’t, forcing them to act a certain way or be a certain way. It has been the death of Gavin’s relationships time and time again. The death of his friendship with Tina and Chris. Never believing that they care about him. (See promise number one).

And he has one delusion. One fantasy keeping him alive. A little lie that he’s wrapped himself up in sometimes so tightly that he forgets it isn’t real. Like a good book, with a story so invoking someone can’t pull their eyes away. Like times when Gavin has spent twelve hours at a television screen playing a game only to realize the sun is coming up.

_ He doesn’t have a family.  _ Not a mother, not a brother, not a father. No cousins or uncles or aunts. No grandparents. No cousins or nephews or nieces. Most of it is easy to pretend. Most of it is already true.

But like all things in his life, it is hard to believe when he needs to the most.

  
  


**MARCH 11, 2040**

Gavin refuses to talk to him. He seems to refuse to talk to everyone. He doesn’t look up when Hank says something a little bit mean, he doesn’t bite back with a retort of his own. He doesn’t comment on something Chris says to him, and he doesn’t seem to even notice that Tina is beside him. Connor says his name five times before he gets a tired glance up at him, one that tells him he’s too exhausted today to be talking to anyone.

And he doesn’t know what to do with that. The feeling of being shut out and pushed away. He doesn’t know how to react. Gavin feels so fragile to Connor that sometimes he thinks it’s best to just walk away. To not push. To not break the thing he has. That he would rather have Gavin as distant as this than to have a shouting match in the middle of the DPD trying to get him to talk to him and then never have anything ever again.

Connor feels guilty for hoping that it goes away on its own. That he isn’t doing anything to help him. That maybe today is just a bad day. That maybe, eventually, tomorrow or the next day or the next week, Gavin will be okay again. He’ll have that stupid smile on his face and making mean jokes and saying things that Connor or Tina will respond with a look of  _ maybe you should apologize  _ and the best they’ll get is Gavin shrugging and walking away, which is the closest of an apology that they ever get.

Connor doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know where he stands anymore. Maybe before, he could’ve taken the seat opposite of Gavin and offered some type of comfort by proximity. But what is he now? Just a boy waiting for him, he supposes. Just a boy existing and waiting. Always, constantly, waiting. Always, constantly, existing.

  
  


**MARCH 11, 2040**

Tina doesn’t invite him over. It’s a demand she makes when they’re getting ready to leave work. Taking his hand and dragging him to her car and pushing him out of it when they reach her apartment building. Not letting him linger, needing him to come with. Mac is hyper and excited when they get home and he lays on the couch as Tina walks around, taking care of things. Dinner on the stove and food dumped into the dog’s bowl. Picking up the mail and placing it where it belongs, running around like she has a million things to do and such little time before eventually, plopping down on the floor beside Gavin with a pillow in her lap and leaning in close to his face.

“Something’s up,” she says quietly, almost like a character in a spy movie. Like people are watching. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

He sighs, because he isn’t good at this. Gavin never grew up talking about his feelings. He was never given the tools to understand how he feels. He knows when he’s happy, because it’s such a rarity, and because of its rarity, it has become precious. Feeling it to the fullest, sometimes, to the point where it feels like everything else he’s felt, no matter how terrible, doesn’t matter anymore. And, with that, he knows when he hurts—hurts so badly that he feels like nothing else has ever existed, either. That the only thing that he’s ever felt that was valid was the pain inside his chest right at that moment.

And now Gavin feels nothing. A numbness that he wills to go away. He doesn’t like being in this state of unfeeling. He gets extreme. He does things he regrets in an effort to make it go away. Hurting himself in one way or another.

“I know Connor kissed you at the fundraiser.”

Gavin sighs again, wondering if he sighs enough times if it will make Tina drop the subject.

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes. Nothing. What happened with you and Chloe?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m changing it. What happened?”

“N-Nothing.”

He gives her a small smile, somewhat fake but mostly real. It’s been a while since he’s seen her like this. Happy in a way that feels pure. Like it’s something that Gavin can’t ruin.

“Did she give you her number?”

“Yes. Did Connor give you his?”

“I already have his.”

“You know what I meant,” Tina says, hitting him, but really he doesn’t know. If it was some kind of innuendo that they did something together. He doesn’t think he can talk about Connor that way. Like he wants to isolate him from everything bad that’s ever happened to Gavin. Sex ruined him, destroyed him from the inside out. He doesn’t want to make that infect Connor now.

“Tell me about her.”

“I barely know her, Gav. Tell me about Chloe.”

“I don’t want to talk,” he says quietly. “Especially about Connor. Just tell me what you know.”

And so she does. She spills little pieces, mostly focusing on the little things. How much can a person get to know another in one night? She tells him that they texted all day, but they had met before through various comments on Instagram linking them together. She tells him that Chloe is funny and kind and makes her feel like she has this brightness inside of her. Like a sun, glowing so bright that it could destroy everything it touches.

Gavin feels the same way about Connor, and it makes him wonder if his face will ever light up with that kind of excitement and happiness about him like it does with Tina. He wonders if it would ever have the capacity, if  _ he  _ could ever have the capacity, to be that happy.

  
  


**MARCH 13, 2040**

Connor is sitting at his desk, marking off the days on a calendar with a chisel-tipped sharpie. Thick black lines put through the days to help reiterate the passage of time. The physical act of it, his hand making the line, him being the one to cross it out, helps more than relying on the internal clock that is always letting him know what time of day it is, when the sun will rise, if it’ll rain, how hot or cold it might be. Sometimes it’s too much information at once, and even if he’s able to sort it out, to organize it, it doesn’t always make sense. Like he is being overloaded with things that don’t matter to him. The temperature isn’t always a necessity to know. He likes the surprise of the weather more often than not, only checking in to see if there’s a rainstorm or snow to look forward to in the week.

Days pass him by so quickly and so often that it’s hard to remember they actually happened. Especially in times when it feels like more days have passed than they actually have. The lack of conversations he’s used to has dulled his ability to tell time apart. It feels like a week has gone by but it’s only been three days. Three painful days of listening to Tina trying to start conversations and never being able to get them off the ground because Gavin won’t reply to her. Three days of cases that he’s had to keep his attention on, never letting it be drawn away by the stupid jokes Gavin makes when he passes his desk.

There is nothing to break up Connor’s work. Not like before. The station has become quiet and dull, like it’s been washed over with a gray lens. Hank, of course, still talks to him. He still talks to Chris and Tina, but it isn’t the same. It’s not quite like it was before.

  
  


**MARCH 15, 2040**

There is a very specific movie the two of them watch when one of them is upset. It’s a movie they both like, something a little cheesy and a little sad and a little happy. It’s good background noise, something to help drown out the thoughts in their head so they can sort themselves out. Gavin and Tina have seen it at least a hundred times—a dozen of which happened in the months after his suicide attempt. The fear always rises when one of them say they don’t want to see it, that they’d rather be alone, that they’d rather not talk about it at all.

It’s like a reassurance when they suggest something else. When Gavin decides a different one sounds like something better to watch. That it isn’t quite  _ that bad  _ but it certainly isn’t  _ extremely awful  _ and fear inducing.

They have a movie night often. Something they can do that doesn’t eat up too much time and doesn’t force either of them to talk. Time they can spend together outside of the station without the pressures of speaking. Gavin picks out the movie, telling Tina he doesn’t want to watch the one that he holds in the back of his head like an emergency handle.

She falls asleep on the other side of the couch, like she always does and he stays there, staring at the screen, watching the events of the movie unfold. He’s never seen it before and he doesn’t care about the plot or the characters, but there’s something that makes his stomach twist with a fear when it comes to the romance subplot. Even if it’s poorly done, he thinks about Connor. It’s impossible to not always think about Connor.

Gavin wishes he were here, that he was the one laying on the other side of the couch kicking at his feet. He wishes Connor was laying against his chest and he could hold onto him and pay more attention to the little details of his face instead of the stupid scenes in the movie that are so poorly lit he can barely tell what’s happening.

It’s always like this. It’s always this desire to have someone he can hold onto or have someone hold onto him. No amount of pillows he squeezes tight to his chest is going to make up for the fact it’s just a piece of fabric stuffed with polyester filling.

And it makes him feel guilty for craving this and wanting it so badly when he knows he would be a terrible boyfriend. Not just because he doesn’t want to be alive anymore, not just because he is planning to end his life in early October, but because Gavin isn’t good at being a boyfriend. He doesn’t know if he can handle it. Having someone love him.

Or maybe not just having someone love him.

But  _ believe  _ they love him.

Believing they want to be with him. He remembers, when he was young, that being around his mother felt like someone loved him. There was this emotion in his chest, this feeling he could recall when he thought about his family. Back when he got along well with his brother, back when his mother was alive and they had good days together. It felt nice and comforting and like anything could happen. But now it’s different. When he was dating a boy a few years ago, he felt nothing. Gavin felt like the person he was with was just there, existing for no other reason than to placate him.

And what a terrible, heartbreaking truth that was when they broke up. What a terrible feeling, a terrible thought, to finally be proven right. That the boy didn’t love Gavin. That he was just playing at some kind of game. There because he felt like he had to.

It brings the heartbreak back. It makes him hurt all over again. Thinking about how he was used so someone else could see if this was what they wanted. Gavin gave his all for a relationship he never felt like he was truly a part of. He did everything he could. He let his walls down and he tried to be soft and he tried to be kind and in the end it didn’t matter.

It’s not that he needed the man to prove that he loved Gavin, he just wanted to feel loved. He just wanted to believe him when he said those three little words and Gavin never did. Not a single time.

He can blame it on a thousand things. He can say it was impossible to believe because of how rarely they were said, he can blame it on the fact that Gavin is who he is, he can blame it on the impossibility of ever thinking someone would genuinely want to be with him. But it doesn’t matter. It changes nothing. It changed nothing, then, either. It didn’t matter how many times Gavin told himself that someone wouldn’t lie to him about it, it wasn’t going to make him believe it.

And now it doesn’t matter. He’s going to die and he can’t change the past. And even if he could, would he have? Would he change anything that happened in his relationships?

Probably. Gavin wants to believe that he’s the type of person to say that the past made him who he is, but he can’t. He can’t allow himself to think that. He regrets every major relationship he’s been in. He regrets letting people inside of his walls and hurting him. He regrets doing whatever he could to keep someone.

There was a time, when he cried, begging and pleading for one of his boyfriends to stay. He thought he was fighting for him, for them, for the relationship. But he wasn’t. He was just selfish and cruel. Crying and unable to stop because he wanted to believe that he was enough. He wanted to believe that him saying he wanted this, wanted them, that he would rethink his decision and stay with Gavin. He hates himself for that, for becoming a pathetic mess when he should’ve just allowed him to leave.

He wishes he could take it all back. He wishes he could have some of them as his friends still. He wishes he didn’t ruin everything and become lonely and pathetic and too sad to care anymore. He wishes he had a life of being utterly alone so his theory of being too unwanted and unlovable wasn’t proven again and again.

Gavin is starting to cry, and he doesn’t know how easily it will be to stop the tears. The run down his cheeks and he brushes them away repeatedly. He bites his tongue and his lip and tries to make something distract himself from the tears so Tina won’t see. It is hard to get them under control. Gavin didn’t use to cry this much, but now it’s a constant. He wants it to stop. He wants to be able to go more than two days without feeling like he is on the verge of a breakdown. He wishes the plans he made for his birthday would be enough of a promise that he could become unfeeling enough to last that long.

The movie comes to an end and he can hear Tina waking up, rubbing her eyes as she stretches. The words that come out of her mouth are a little tongue-tied, mostly gibberish like she doesn’t know what she’s saying.

“Go back to sleep,” he says, getting up from the couch, hiding his face and his red-rimmed eyes from her. “You can stay the night.”

“Thanks for the permission, but I have to take care of Mac,” she says quietly, her voice hoarse. “Are you going to be okay? Do you want me to stay?”

“You can go.”

She hesitates, staring at him where he stands by the television, picking up the remnants of their candy and popcorn, putting the DVD back in its case.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asks again, her voice clearer this time, flatter, more stern.

“I’m fine, Tina.”

“Are you sure? I know you don’t want to talk about your feelings but—”

Gavin turns back to look at her, leaning against the wooden stand behind him. It’s not quite sturdy enough to withstand his weight against it, he can feel the cheap wooden boards protesting his weight.

“I’m fine,” he repeats. “I promise.”

Tina is still staring at him, like she expects more. Like she expects a brief explanation and he doesn’t know what to give. He doesn’t like talking about his feelings, she’s right. It isn’t because he’s incapable, even though there is always a lack of words to describe exactly what’s going on in his brain. But it’s also the fact he doesn’t want to dump any more weight on her than he already has. She is carrying so much of his grief that he can’t reasonably as her to take any more.

“Should I be worried, Gavin?” she whispers.

He chews his bottom lip, hard enough to taste blood, to feel the clean slice of teeth through the skin. He doesn’t like to lie to her. She is the one person that he doesn’t want to make distrust him. It took months and months to convince her he wasn’t going to do anything to hurt himself.

But he has to. He always has to lie when it comes to this.

“No,” he says. “You have my word.”

She nods, like she doesn’t quite believe him but she wants to. Tina stands and starts getting her things. The shoes by the door, the coat hanging up on the wooden pegs in the wall. Before she leaves, she wraps her arms around him tight and tells him to call if he needs her. He knows this, and he hugs her back almost reluctantly.

Reluctant because he doesn’t want her to leave. Reluctant because he misses her before she’s even starting to go to the door. He calls out for her to have a good night and he lets out a long heavy breath when the door closes behind her and he’s alone again.

  
  


**MARCH 17, 2040**

When his nightmares first started they were such a strange and new thing, like all of Connor's emotions were in the beginning, that he sought out Hank. At night he stayed beside him. Sitting on the edge of his bed until he felt safe again. Sometimes falling asleep laying there beside him like a child too terrified to be alone, like the dark might manifest into a grotesque android body ready to slaughter him in revenge. It wasn’t as though being beside Hank made the nightmares go away—not always. They’d come back sometimes and he’d wake up with a tight feeling in his chest like everything around his torso was bound tight with rope or duct tape, making it difficult to move or think. But it helped. It helped not being alone, it helped not having to be by himself to determine that they weren’t real and that the room around him was.

Connor stopped going to him, seeing the way the mornings after Hank looked more tired than usual. Hank never teased or joked about them—not even in the most basic sense. They were a serious thing that he only ever talked about in a serious manner when they were alone. It was Connor’s decision to stop telling him about them and let Hank think they started to go away on their own, rather than the fact that they are still very, very present.

It’s much more difficult to deal with a nightmare on his own. To make the fear dissipate and trust that everything is going to be okay. It takes a lot longer to ease his thoughts back into peace again. But it is better than hurting Hank.

Tonight he doesn’t want to be alone. Sumo is sitting on his floor, his usual savior when he can’t manage a few hours in the dark by himself. But it feels strange. Even when he wraps his arms around Sumo’s neck and hangs onto him like a child too scared to let go, it’s not enough, which makes him feel guilty. It makes him feel ashamed and awful that any of this is happening to begin with, and his tears wet the fur on Sumo’s head and he brushes them away with harsh movements like it will do anything to keep them from coming.

Connor keeps turning his phone in his hands over and over. Opening it and closing it again. Willing himself to call Gavin. Because Gavin is all he wants right now. He thinks if he was alone, if he could cry loudly instead of suffocating each and every noise against his hands, he would be screaming like an idiot for him. He doesn’t know why he’s this attached to Gavin. He doesn’t understand it.

But all he wants is Gavin beside him telling him that it’s going to be okay and he isn’t here and Connor can’t bring himself to call him. It’s not just that it’s late at night and he’d likely wake him—it’s the fact Gavin hasn’t spoken to him in a week. Has barely even looked at him with anything other than a blank stare telling him whatever they had before it was over.

He wants to fix it and he can’t.

He feels so empty and so full of grief at the same time and it hurts. It feels like it’s cutting him up inside and he can’t do anything to stop the bleeding unless he tears himself apart piece by piece.

It’s so stupid, and in the morning when the remnants of the nightmare are gone and all that is left behind is the memory of him sitting on the bedroom floor with Sumo beside him sobbing in the dark, Connor will only think about how much he overreacted to it all. He wants to suffocate it for just a moment. Make everything a little quieter. Exist for a moment without feeling everything to such a high degree.

But he opens his phone again and he types a singular line into the message box to Gavin, deletes it before he can get himself to impulsively send it and he crawls back under the covers, closing his eyes and doing his best to force everything to go away again but the same thought is on repeat in the back of his head.

_ I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. _

  
  


**MARCH 19, 2040**

Gavin is trying to act normal. He knows that the feeling isn’t going to go away with time. It never does. It hasn’t before and it won’t change now, just to please him. It was there before, just fading a little bit each day. Elijah reminded him, which sounds cruel. It’s terrible to put that kind of pressure on a person—being the reason he’s reminded he doesn’t really want to be alive anymore. Gavin had a week or two where he wasn’t constantly thinking about it. Even looked forward to the fundraiser, just to see Connor. To spend time with him. To see him dressed up a fraction more than he usually is. To wear a stupid tux with that silly tie.

He didn’t expect Eli to be there, and it undid all the work he wasn’t aware he had put into feeling okay again. It made it impossible to even pretend.

But he’s trying. Back to acting like he’s happy. Laughing at Tina’s jokes, taking longer than he should to respond with one. Too much thought bogging down his usual quick retorts, even if half of those aren’t even all that comedic. Tonight he’s over at her place, listening to her talk about Chloe more and more.

They met before the fundraiser. Gavin didn’t know that. She was Tina’s little secret—meeting over Instagram. Sending messages back and forth, commenting on each other’s pictures. Tina has so many followers he doesn’t see all the little interactions she has. Most of the time it turns into a selfish thing, making everything about himself, thinking about how everyone else will be a better friend for her. How they can comfort her when he’s gone. At least she’ll have that. Thousands and thousands of adoring fans to make her mourning a little easier.

Gavin didn’t realize their friendship existed before the fundraiser. He didn’t realize Tina even knew her or could recognize her. There are so many androids with the same faces he can hardly tell them apart unless they have some uniqueness to them. North, Simon, Josh—they’re the only ones of their models standing beside Markus. It’s easy to distinguish them from the other WR400s, PL600s and PJ500s. Markus and Connor are both the only ones of their kinds. The only faces and the only models. It’s easy to know them from the rest.

But Chloe’s face is common. The original. It doesn’t matter if her hair is blonde or black, long or short. She is recognizable in the fact she was the first android to ever step out from Kamski’s stupid lair.

And she looks familiar, too. He’s never been able to understand why Chloe looks so familiar, from the first second he saw her. He never cared to look into it that deeply, but now he sees Chloe’s face often, cropping up on Tina’s phone as he spies over her shoulder on her feed.

“Are you ever going to ask her out?”

“Are you ever going to ask Connor out?”

He could joke, he could tell the truth. He decides to do neither. Avoid the conversation at all costs like he’s used to, stealing her phone from her hands and pushing her back as he finds the contacts app.

“Maybe I’ll do it for you.”

“Give it back, Gav.”

“You don’t have the guts, but I can do it pretty easily.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“You’ll thank me later,” Gavin says, stepping up onto the edge of the coffee table, holding the phone above his head to keep her from grabbing it. There’s a soft hit against his stomach, not hard enough to make him double over and hurt himself, but enough to warn him that Tina isn’t exactly pleased with what’s happening.

But he doesn’t care.

She should be happy. She should be with someone she likes. She should be with someone who clearly likes her in return.

He sends the text quick. A short brief  _ do you want to go on a date next Wednesday? _

He waits for a response, stepping carefully around the objects on the surface beneath him. Tina can’t get him up here. It’s like a safety net. She can’t hurt him or he’ll fall and get an even worse injury. She can’t stand up here with him, the table wouldn’t support both of their weight. She can’t even reach the phone from his hands—too short to get that high up.

But she can throw a thousand insults at him. A barrage of  _ idiot, stupid, asshole, i hate you, you’re the worst  _ flying from her mouth so fast they merge together into something barely intelligible.

The text rings in quick and he holds up his hand, finding her face as he reads it off the screen, covering her mouth to stop her from speaking.

“She said she’d love to go on a date with you,” he says, and Tina bites down on his fingers.

“Fuck you, Gavin.”

But Tina is smiling, trying to hide it. She’s still angry, hits him again in the shoulder when he drops back down to the floor, taking her phone back.

“You’re welcome.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

  
  


[ID: The interiors of Carl Manfred’s living room, although the home belongs to Markus now.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — ٩( ´◡` )( ´◡` )۶

posted  **MARCH 20, 2040 **

**crayolamarkus ** Piano lessons this Saturday?

|  **connor_rk800** @crayolamarkus I’ll be there! (＾ω＾)

——————————

It is strange to think about when Carl Manfred died. What he was doing at that moment. Hunting down deviants, not feeling anything at all. If Connor had been there, if him and Hank had been assigned to the case, he wonders how it would’ve happened. If Markus had gotten away instead of destroyed and sent to the junkyard, would they have the same relationship they do now? If Connor had been investigating the Manfred home instead of Carlos Ortiz’s body, if he had stumbled upon Markus hiding somewhere in the house, would he have turned him in, just like he’d turned in the HK400?

Of course he would have. It’s stupid to think about. The Markus standing in front of Connor, the Markus that invited him over to talk to him, to reconnect, is different than the Markus that would’ve been only seconds into deviancy. He’s different even than the leader who pulled him over to the other side.

It’s strange to think about that, too. How different they are. How different they dress and hold themselves than that moment on the boat or just after the revolution.

Their friendship never really existed. Their acquaintanceship ended rather quickly. After Connor’s purpose in helping the revolution was fulfilled, after he felt Amanda or CyberLife or whoever else scrambling through his head trying to force him to kill Markus, he had run away, essentially. Ending whatever they could have had before it began. He didn’t like the idea of being near Markus. It felt dangerous. Connor spent months and months trying to convince himself that it wouldn’t happen again.

They haven’t talked since. Markus didn’t tell Connor about the fundraiser–Fowler had. They talked so little at the actual event that he felt obligated to come here. But even without the obligation, he thinks he would’ve wanted to come. He likes Markus. He likes the idea of them being friends. He likes the idea of closing the gap between their opposing roles they were both forced into.

Connor accepted Markus’ invitation here, and he is glad he did. Markus leads him around the house, telling him a little bit about the place. It all feels like smalltalk, shoved into the conversation to make it go a little smoother. Things they can discuss like an icebreaker before they feel more comfortable actually conversing. It’s weird, thinking that someone who helped pull him over into deviancy should act so awkward in his own house.

When Carl died, Leo inherited it, and Leo then gave it back to Markus and Markus in turn spent a careful amount of time turning it into his own place.

“Most of it’s the same,” he says, looking up to the pattern on the ceiling, to the chandelier hanging there. “I didn’t… I don’t know. It’s hard to meet a happy middle of changing too much and too little.”

“Don’t want to pretend Carl never existed?”

“Don’t want to be smothered by the reminder he’s gone now,” Markus says quietly.

Connor nods. He understands–vaguely. He is lucky to have not lost anyone in his life. That Hank lived through the events at CyberLife Tower, that Tina and Gavin are okay. That Chris, out on the streets, was never hurt during the revolution when he was so close to being killed.

Markus was the one that saved him.

It’s weird to think about. That his friend, someone he talks to but doesn’t ever feel like it’s enough, has this connection with someone like Markus. As fleeting and momentary as his own was. Until now.

“You took all the books to Jericho?” Connor asks, following him into the now ex-library. It looks barren. All the shelves emptied off, replaced instead with small portraits or boxes. The process still ongoing.

“I thought other people should have access to them. And Carl always encouraged me to read.”

“Classics,” Connor says. “You like any?”

“I don’t know, it feels like a thousand years since I’ve read anything.” Markus laughs. “I saw you looking at them with that… guy.”

It’s funny, watching Markus’ face scrunch up, as if he talked to Gavin personally to know that he should have such a reaction to begin with.

“Gavin. Yeah.”

“He work with you?”

“Yes.”

“And Tina?”

“You met Tina?”

“I meet Chloe, I meet Tina. They were inseparable.”

_ Inseparable.  _ Connor had only seen them once after Gavin ran away. He’d bumped into her, pulled from a crowd of people with Tina asking him what happened, if Gavin was okay, telling him that he’d run off. He thought about going to Gavin’s apartment before deciding otherwise. Sometimes space is necessary to repair oneself. He felt that, too. A need to be alone after talking to Kamski.

Chloe had been with her, a few feet behind like she was following Tina around, even though it was likely the other way for the remainder of the night.

He didn’t ask Tina how it went. If things worked out between her and Chloe. He guesses it must have.

“H-How much money did you raise?” Connor asks, desperate to change the subject.

“Enough to start construction on expansions at the headquarters,” Markus replies. “It’s… not enough. For everything. But it’s a good start. I think some people feel guilty.”

“Or they want to feel like good people,” Connor says. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Did…” he trails off, wondering if he should ask it, if he can without Markus questioning him why he cares. “Did Kamski donate?”

“There was a rather large anonymous donation that I assumed was from him.”

Connor nods, wondering why he really cares. It’s not as if Kamski donating would do anything to help Gavin feel better about that night. It’s not like it would fix what he fucked up.

“Did he talk to you?”

“Why?”

“Just–” Connor shakes his head, looking away. “Weird, isn’t it? Meeting him? Seeing him?”

He’s their creator. It’s not the same as meeting Kamski when he was a machine. He didn’t really care. He was there for a mission and then he was killing Chloe to prove that’s all it was, even though he knows it wasn’t. It’s different now, as a deviant, having these emotions flood through him at the sight of Kamski. How everything has twisted and changed and altered his perception of the past.

“I saw him talking to you. You seemed… mad.”

Connor glances back up to Markus, not sure if he should admit it. He doesn’t get mad very easily. He doesn’t allow himself to. He knows how it has damaged him before. How it almost got Hank killed. How it almost ruined everything. He locks up his anger and refuses to feel it. He’s seen it destroy so much. Hatred and anger. Every time he gets frustrated at something he gets tears in his eyes and this guilty feeling that he’s mad about something so small and inconsequential. And there are cases, too. Cases where he sees children being hurt or people murdered and he has to step away and try to put on a blank face. It’s the only time he allows himself to be numb to the cruelties of life and the vicious nature of humans.

“It was nothing. We’d met before, that’s all.”

“And Gavin? He stormed off.”

“It’s nothing,” he says quickly. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Kamski or Gavin?”

“Both,” Connor says, a little too sharply. “Sorry. I just–The construction? For the expansions, what are you adding?”

“More rooms for androids to stay before they get their feet on the ground. Connor, what’s wrong? Did one of them do something? Say something?”

Connor feels a hand on his shoulder and he didn’t even remember looking away from Markus, but now he’s so close and it makes him jump, startling away from him.

“Nobody did anything,” he whispers. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You’re upset.”

He looks back to Markus again, the way his face shifts, the way he’s concerned, the way he’s reaching out to him. It’s like he’s on the boat again, like Markus is pulling this information out of him without even trying. Or like in the church, when he’d rested his hand on Connor’s shoulder and it was the first time he’d ever been touched that didn’t feel like a threat, but a comfort. It’s like the moment, right after the revolution, when he’d reassured Connor that he helped them win.

He wishes their friendship didn’t end before it could ever begin, but now here they are, picking up where they left off, even further than they might’ve been before. Markus giving him the opportunity to talk to him, to vent to him, about something he can’t talk to Tina or Hank about. He can’t talk about Gavin with Tina, and he can’t talk about Kamski with Hank. Everything’s been ruined by two stupid brothers.

Or maybe everything was just ruined by their cruel presence of a father. Maybe they would’ve stuck together if it hadn’t been for him, and then Connor wonders if he would’ve ever been built. If androids would’ve ever been created. And then he wonders, at the very heart of it all, if he has a soul that would’ve been placed in a human body instead. If he would’ve still been alive and met Gavin somehow, if he would’ve found his way to Hank or Tina or the others. If he’d know anyone or exist at all.

It’s a stupid little existential crisis, but it happens all in one breath.

“I’m fine,” he says again, quietly. “It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Connor laughs, and it’s almost real. Markus sounds like him, when he’s talking to Gavin. Trying to get him to speak. Life is just a cycle of people refusing to talk about what’s wrong with them, then feeling isolated and alone with the crushing need to speak, to get it all out, to stop feeling like they’ve been cut off from the world.

“Kamski was an ass,” Connor says, with a small shrug. “It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.”

“And Gavin?”

“He…” It sounds so silly. So stupid. Markus is working on bettering android’s lives. Fighting for them to have the rights they deserve. To get jobs and proper wages. To be able to get married and have families, and Connor is about to cry because Gavin kissed him and then never talked to him again.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” he says, but he wonders if it’s a lie. Because every time he tried to talk to Gavin and Gavin refused to reply, it felt like he’d been slapped. It hurt, like a sting in his chest. Every time he saw Gavin refuse to look his way but slowly warm back up to the old jokes he made with Tina, to laughing at things she or Chris would say, but refuse to talk to him–

It hurt. It’s stupid. He shouldn’t feel jealous or obligated to it, but Connor misses him. He misses Gavin but he’s always just right there. So far out of reach, and he doesn’t know what to do. He just knows he did something wrong. He can’t figure out what it is to fix it, but he wants to. He wants Gavin back.

“I promised I’d go on a date with him,” Connor says softly, whispering the words like they’re a secret even though he just feels stupid saying them out loud. “And it’s all he really wanted, but now he won’t talk to me, and I don’t get it.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” Connor says with a laugh. “It’s dumb. I know.”

Markus shrugs, a half  _ no, of course not  _ and half  _ yes, well, it kind of is.  _ Not quite on one side or the other. It’s how Connor feels, too. Like it matters too much to him. It shouldn’t. It hasn’t even been that long of a time. It’s not as if weeks or months have passed by. It’s only been a few days. But he sees how Gavin has changed, he sees how his demeanor has shifted into quiet and annoyed and it hurts.

“I should go,” he says suddenly. “I–I need to get back to work. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“No, it’s fine–”

Connor moves away from Markus, like he needs to run again. Always this urge to move. Too much energy sitting inside of him restless and unused.

“Connor, slow down.”

He doesn’t really listen. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He just needs to get away.

So he runs.

  
  


[ID: Connor standing by the empty bookshelves in the Manfred home with a hand up in

either an awkward wave or an attempt to hide his face before the picture was taken.]

**crayolamarkus** — Connor visited yesterday. ^ ‿ ^

posted  **MARCH 21, 2040 **

**connor_rk800** (＾ω＾)

——————————

It’s a weird way he’s ended up here. Not from Connor’s post to Markus’ page, but from Tina’s to Chloe’s to Simon’s to North’s to Markus’. A long trek for little gain. Gavin isn’t sure why he did it. He doesn’t think it was on purpose. He had been avoiding Connor’s pictures in his feed since they haven’t talked in a week and a half. It feels wrong to comment on them, to even look at them. But he’s here, on Markus’ page, staring at the picture that feels like it is reaching through the screen and hurting him.

Gavin knows he’s jealous, but he also knows what little right he has to be. He was the one that shut Connor out, not the other way around. His upset isn’t deserved—in fact, it’s probably hypocritical. He doesn’t know if it would affect him the same way if the picture came from anyone other than Markus. He thinks if it was Simon or Tina or Hank it would just be another picture, another moment Connor is spending with someone else.

But it’s Markus and for some reason that changes everything. They have a bond, Gavin thinks. He doesn’t know much about them, but he knows they’re both prototypes. He knows they’re both RK units. Isn’t that enough to piece them together?

Maybe it just seems like a lot. Evidence stacking up higher and higher because his own relationships never seem to stand on anything at all and crumple under the weight of whatever it is. There is no tie between him and half the people he’s met and been with. There is such a rarity in his life where he finds he loves someone that it feels too important.

He either cares too little or too much. Never any in-between. And he cares too much about this stupid picture of Connor at Markus’ place. It’s eating him up inside, reminding him that everything was fucked up and made impossible between the two long before Gavin ever put a gun to his head.

  
  


**MARCH 23, 2040**

“You shouldn’t smoke,” he says quietly, trying for a joke. It’s the first time he’s caught Gavin in nearly a week. The two of them alone outside, Gavin as close to the door to the building as he can and Connor getting ready to leave on a case. Hank is waiting for him in the car.

“Fuck off, Con.”

Connor pauses, not expecting Gavin to have said anything to begin with. He expected silence in response, or maybe an annoyed expression. Not actual words. Not words that sound pissed off and annoyed that Connor even thought about talking to him to begin with.

“Sorry,” he says, and he spits out the apology more bitter than he means to, but it isn’t as if the apology was genuine to begin with. Might as well make it clear. “You get so angry that people care about you, don’t you?”

Gavin rolls his eyes, turns his attention away from Connor like he regrets that he invited this argument.

“No,” Connor says, because Gavin shouldn’t get off that easy. It shouldn’t be one thing said and then over with. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Connor cares about him and all he keeps getting in response is Gavin shoving him away like it’s the cruelest thing on the planet to worry about someone’s health. But he doesn’t have anything else to add. Just a sharp  _ no. _

_ No,  _ stop running.  _ No,  _ stop pushing. Just stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

He walks back over to Gavin, suddenly angry now, hating himself for it. Always hating himself when he gets this frustrated, always feeling like one act of violence or furious nature will undo all the hard work he’s done of trying to repair the damage he caused before. Fixing all the cruel things he said once upon a time, even if they weren’t meant to be mean. Just careless. Unfeeling. Connor doesn’t want to be unfeeling but it’s better than this. Cold and angry and snatching the cigarette from Gavin’s hand and stomping it underneath his foot.

“The fuck, Con?”

“You shouldn’t smoke,” he says, and suddenly he feels like a very stupid child again and he hates this feeling. He hates feeling, in general. He hates this moment. He hates that there are angry tears in his eyes and he hates that he can’t tell Gavin he loves him and wants him to be alive without it being construed in a different manner because it doesn’t matter how much he cares about Gavin romantically, he isn’t ready to say those words in that context and he knows if he does, Gavin will hear them that way. He’ll twist them to fit that way.

Connor wishes it was easier. He wishes he was in love with Gavin so he could say them and maybe it would knock some sense into his stupid head.

“And I told you to fuck off,” he says, a hand coming up and pushing Connor away. Not gently, but not harsh enough to actually make him move. He’s reaching again his pocket for the cigarette pack and the lighter and Connor feels like an idiot taking them from his hands, fumbling with them and wrestling to get them away.

He doesn’t know why it’s happening like this. He just wanted to  _ talk  _ to Gavin. He was tired of being shut out. He was tired of being told to go away with looks and unspoken actions. He wanted to go back to before Kamski ever showed up and before that night ever happened because now he isn’t even sure if it was Kamski’s presence there at the fundraiser that ruined this thing between them or if it’s because Connor kissed him.

He wishes he hadn’t kissed Gavin. He wishes it more than anything.

“Give it back, Con. I don’t have time for your fucking games.”

“And I don’t have time for yours. Stop smoking.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Gavin whispers. “Give it back.”

“No,” he says, and he holds them over his head and Gavin reaches up, trying to take them from him and it might’ve been funny how short Gavin is, how much he’s trying to get them back, in any other circumstance. The whole thing might’ve been amusing if it wasn’t undercut by the previous events. “Promise me you’ll stop.”

“Fuck you. You’re not my boss.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So give it back.”

“No.”

“Connor, give it back or–”

“Or what?” he snaps. “You’ll punch me? You’ll kill me? Go ahead and shoot me, you’ve done it before. This time I’ll probably stay dead, is that what you want from me?”

He doesn’t know why he said it.

_ He doesn’t know why he said it. _

Connor watches Gavin’s face fall, the anger disappearing and becoming something else, the hands falling back to his side, the features twisting up. Connor regretted it before Gavin even had the words sink in and yet he can’t take them back now and the apology is twisted up on his tongue and he can’t get the words out and he thinks, maybe, he doesn’t remember how to. He thinks he forgot the words, because otherwise he’d be spitting it out. Saying it fast. Making sure Gavin knew he didn’t mean it but his mouth is sewn up tight.

“Fuck you. Don’t–” Gavin shakes his head, his hands coming up like they want to push him but instead they get shoved into his pockets, like he’s afraid to touch Connor. “Don’t ever speak to me again.”

Connor watches him walk away and he feels his heart sink and everything crashing down and he’s left there alone with a stupid lighter and a pack of cigarettes in his hands and he can hear Hank calling for him, telling him they have to go and he is frozen there, unable to call Gavin back, unable to get a word out. He can’t move.

He doesn’t know why he said it. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean to remind Gavin of what happened before. He didn’t mean to put the pressure back onto what happened to them. He didn’t mean to say something like that. To make matters worse.

Connor forgave him. Of course he forgave him. He doesn’t hold it against him. He knows he gave up in that fight, he knows he taunted him, he knows it isn’t all his own fault but he can’t rest it all so easily on Gavin’s shoulders either. He hates this. He hates himself for saying it.

“Shit,” he whispers quietly to himself, pocketing the cigarettes and the lighter, turning to Hank’s car. He takes the steps down to it quickly, trying to keep himself from crying, suffocating every piece of himself as he tries to decipher where it all went wrong.

  
  


[ID: Markus playing the piano, his hands are blurred

from a too-quick movement for a picture to be taken cleanly.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — @crayolamarkus isn’t a bad teacher, I’m just a bad student.

posted  **MARCH 24, 2040 **

**crayolamarkus ** You’ll get there. !(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

|  **connor_rk800** @crayolamarkus (✿◠‿◠)

——————————

“It wasn’t your fault he hurt you,” Markus says. The piano has long since been abandoned, their evening and time together half-ruined by how poorly Connor plays and how much his focus is drawn away. “You said he hit you?”

Connor nods, but he feels guilty for it. It’s strange. He never thought about it before. Never really thought about it in the context of those words. Gavin hitting him. It wasn’t like that. He knows people say that when it comes to terrible things that their partner do to them, but it wasn’t like that. It was a punch to his stomach he didn’t even feel, but it was the action of it. The violence behind it.

“It’s not–” he breathes in a sharp breath. “It wasn’t…”

“You blame yourself for it.”

“I was egging him on.”

Markus shrugs, “Doesn’t mean he should’ve hit you.”

“It’s not like he was doing it to hurt me,” Connor says. “He didn’t think I could feel it.”

“So?”

He shakes his head. It’s impossible to explain how he thinks of the situation. Separate from who he is now. The Connor and Gavin then are not the same Connor and Gavin now. It’s been a long time. They’re different. It doesn’t count. But it does. It doesn’t change anything. But it changes everything.

“Do you… are you forgiving him for it because you really forgive him or because you don’t want him to feel guilty about it?”

He laughs a little, like it’s a joke, but he knows it’s not. He just doesn’t know how to say that it’s both. That his time as a machine he keeps distant like it never happened or else it crushes him entirely. That he forgives Gavin because even if he didn’t truly apologize, he knows what happened. He knows that the punch wasn’t really directed at Connor, but at the idea of him. Androids replacing him, taking over the one thing he has left. Connor doesn’t want to psychoanalyze him, but he isn’t an idiot, either. Connor understands what it’s like to feel easily replaceable. He died seven times and each time they sent out a new version of him, a little more broken, eventually to be replaced by a version so perfected and without flaw that he’d be destroyed, too.

He’d hit whoever that was too.

But Markus is right. He doesn’t want Gavin to feel guilty about it, but he does. He sees how much Gavin torments himself over every little thing he fucks up. Even when he just insults someone, Connor sees when he flinches because the slight was a little too sharp, a little more harmful and poisonous than he intended.

Connor knows how he sounds, telling Markus that it isn’t like that. That Gavin is a good person, he’s just hidden underneath layers of trauma. But he can’t say all of it. He can’t tell Markus that Gavin was abused as a child or tried to kill himself as recently as a month before Connor showed up. He can’t say those things, those secrets even he shouldn’t be allowed to know.

And he’s aware it doesn’t excuse any of it. Of course it doesn’t. He isn’t a fool. He knows people get hurt by others and they don’t end up punching androids and telling them to stay out of their way and later holding a gun to their head and firing. He’s aware of that. He’s aware that abuse doesn’t validate more abuse.

It’s just–

More complicated than he can say out loud.

“You said there was more?” Markus asks quietly. “What do you mean?”

Connor lets out a breath, but it does little to ease the tension in his shoulders, “He killed me.”

“He killed you, and you still kissed him? You still want to be with him?”

He hides his face in his hands. Saying it like that, putting it down to the bare minimum details with no context, it makes Gavin sound horrid. And he is. Connor isn’t saying he isn’t terrible sometimes, most of the time. It’s just he knows the other part of him. He knows the soft boy with the one glove telling him about how disgusted he was at killing an animal in a video game. He knows the boy that looks at him like he’s afraid of everything in the world and Connor is the only thing he can hold onto.

“I let him.”

“He still killed you.”

But it isn’t just that. It’s that Gavin isn’t that boy he was before. He hasn’t physically hurt Connor since he deviated, and the only emotional hurt between them was because of Kamski at the fundraiser. Gavin isn’t abusive. He isn’t a monster. He’s complicated and he’s changed. He’s a better person, now.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know. I just… how do you hold that against someone?”

“How do you  _ not?” _

“Leo hurt you. Do you hate him?”

Markus freezes, looking away fast, hiding himself in the cushions and the blankets, “Leo is different.”

“How?”

“He’s–I don’t know. He was high.”

“Does that really change everything?”

“Stop,” Markus says quietly. “Okay? Just… stop.”

He isn’t done yet, though. He isn’t done pouring everything out. He has a thousand reasons he can excuse Gavin killing him. It’s so easy. The desire to be forgiven for killing androids himself. The hypocrisy of forgiving Hank even though he begged to stay alive and being unable to forgive Gavin. Everything wound up too tight and too complex to be taken apart in one evening, but here he is, ready to spill everything.

“Humans are stupid,” he settles on. “I understand why North hates them.”

Markus laughs, and it’s a nice break. It’s a nice departure from their conversation from before, and he lets it go this route. Stories that Markus has about North. Funny ones, not ones that are tainted with the blood of the revolution. Things he knows there that he shouldn’t know, too. He was given every piece of evidence that the DPD ever had in connection with deviants.

He sometimes has dreams of North, kneeling in the snow, watching her twin die. Replaying footage from that night in Capitol Park. Footage that Connor sought out again and again not just for more information on Markus, but on how close Chris was to death, too. Rewatching it sometimes helps ease the terror in his nightmares of Chris dying. A reaffirmation that he’s alive.

Humans are stupid and they’re cruel and they are very, very rarely worth forgiving.

  
  


**MARCH 25 , 2040**

“Gavin, wait—”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. About what I said.”

“Don’t be. I deserved it.”

  
  


[ID: It’s dark enough outside that it’s difficult to make out the shapes,

but if looked closely enough, it looks like a basketball court at a playground.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — [no caption added.]

posted  **MARCH 29, 2040 ** [deleted  **MARCH 30, 2040** ]

——————————

He goes to Gavin’s apartment first. Knocking on the door for thirty minutes and never getting a response. He leans against the wall, waiting and waiting. The phone ringing but no one picking up. He needs to talk to him. He needs to fix this. He needs to sort out what went wrong. They can’t keep doing this, and Gavin isn’t going to be the one to say it first. He’s never going to be the one that lets Connor in unless he forces him to.

Connor isn’t a patient person, but he can wait for Gavin. He’s always been okay with waiting for Gavin. But it’s been a year of it, constantly waiting for Gavin to make a move. Waiting for him to be comfortable enough to come to Connor so it didn’t feel like he was pushing him or prying information from him unwillingly. But there comes a point when he realized Gavin is someone that has his walls locked up tight. Built out a material that will never crumble.

If it takes yelling at him to get Gavin to say something, he will. Connor can’t handle the silence anymore. He can’t handle the looks Gavin gives him. He can’t handle their last interactions being built on something Connor said accidentally and never meant in the first place.

He ends the last call himself, knowing Gavin won’t pick it up. He doesn’t know if he’s home. He texts Tina and the only response she gets is that she’s out, that she’s clueless as to where Gavin might be. It is entirely possible that Gavin is in the apartment behind him, that he is hiding away in a room and refusing to answer the door, but Connor’s persistence and Gavin’s lack of an ability to keep his temper in check makes him think Gavin wouldn’t endure thirty minutes of knocking, especially when it’s so loud the neighbors have already poked their head out of their doors to tell him to stop.

He checks his feed on a whim. Not really knowing if anything Gavin posted would tell him anything. There’s only one picture since the fundraiser. He hasn’t updated it in over two weeks, leaving it blank until tonight. Connor’s only ever seen his activity through Tina’s comments, when a few of them crop up to say something about the two hanging out.

A playground. Dark—too dark to really see what’s going on. The picture was likely taken over an hour ago, when the sun was finally setting. There are over three hundred parks in Detroit. It would take him hours to check each one.

But he decides the closest one is the most likely option, and Connor tucks his phone away, pulling his jacket around him tight as he descends the stairs again to brace the cold in hopes of finding him.

And this time, he thinks, he won’t let Gavin go.

  
  


[ID: Gavin sitting up on a basketball hoop in a playground, leaning against the backboard.

The only light is coming from a streetlamp behind him, making his shape a strange shadow in the dark.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Look who I found.

posted  **MARCH 29, 2040 ** [deleted  **MARCH 30, 2040** ]

**tina_tot** get down from there !!!

——————————

“Hi.”

He looks away from the sky to Connor beneath him. Standing a few yards away, awkward and uncomfortable.  _ Fuck.  _ Gavin had come here to be alone. Away from Tina and the rest. It was a stupid decision taking a picture of the park, but he didn’t think anyone would actually follow him. Tina would only have followed him here if he gave her reason to be suspicious—which he often did accidentally. But this time he hadn’t, it had been Connor instead.

“What do you want?”

“To talk. Can you come down?”

Gavin shakes his head.  _ No, no, no.  _ It’s safe up here. People can’t touch him. They can’t reach him or hurt him. He just wanted to be alone. Truly alone. Away from his apartment where someone could knock on his door and he’d have to pretend he wasn’t home. Away from his cats because sometimes—

Sometimes when his sadness surges through him it turns to anger. Sometimes he gets scared of what he might do. Throw something and frighten Latte or Cappuccino. Or push them away when all they’re trying to do is see why he’s crying. It’s just better to be alone.

At least there aren’t tears in his eyes now. At least he has that.

“Gavin, please?”

_ Why? _

Jump down and stand in front of a person he knows he can’t be with? They had a date. What he thought was a date. He is still fuzzy on the details, but it was a while back. A couple of months. Not important anymore. Gavin is never really important to anyone. Not for very long. His presence in people’s lives is always short-lived. Tina is the only one that’s lasted very long. Chris has a baby now. Little baby toddling its way around his house. They don’t talk like they used to. And Tina?

He sees the way her face shifts when she talks about Chloe. It’s a serious relationship.

He’s alone.

He doesn’t expect that he’ll ever get anyone else. Least of all Connor.

Not that it would matter, anyways. At the end of the year, nothing really matters anymore. He’ll be gone.

“Go home, Connor.”

“No.”

“Fuck,” he whispers. “The fuck do you want?”

“Do you want me to list my demands?” Connor asks. “Like a bank robber?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Try it.”

“I want you to get down before you fall and hurt yourself,” Connor says, and his words start to come out rushed, too many colliding into one another. “I want you to come down here so I can talk to you. I want you to actually have a conversation about something for once instead of just running away and assuming what I want. I want—I want you to want to talk to me. I want you to want to—”

Connor’s abrupt stop brings Gavin’s attention back to him, watching him again closely now. The way he turns his head, the way he’s refusing to look up to him so Connor can see his expression.

“Go on,” Gavin says. “What do you want?”

“Just… get down. Please.”

Okay.

_ Okay. _

Gavin makes his way down. As carefully as he can manage, despite it still hurting his legs when he hits the ground, metal biting into his hands and sending a small wave of pain through his palms. When he hits the ground, he moves away from Connor, over to the merry-go-round and sitting on the edge. The metal protests his weight, squeaks and groans as his feet push it back in forth in a slow circle. Connor joins him, digging his heel into the woodchips to keep it from spinning.

They’re silent for a long time. Eventually Connor pulls his feet up, knees against his chest, arms wrapped around. Gavin pushes against the ground, moving them slowly around. Head tipped back to watch the stars as they spin above them. They don’t go fast enough to make him dizzy, not really, but the movement is enough to make him feel a little sick. The void above him. Dark black and endless. Pinpricks of white stars telling him tales of other galaxies and planets and life. Telling Gavin how inconsequential his life really is in the grand scheme of things. It matters very little to him how much unknown is out there. He will never see it. It just gives him the same feeling of dread when he looks out at the city late at night or all of the knowledge he will never be able to cram into his head. The lack of time to learn another language or visit other countries.

Sometimes, it’s in wonder. How humans have crafted places to live. Buildings so tall they climb higher than Gavin would ever hope to go. Lives and relationships and families being threaded together through emotion and communication. Sometimes, that is an amazing thing to think about. How he still has so much time left to live. He’s not even forty yet, despite nearing it. He has plenty of time to find someone that can love him and accept his damage. There are so many people out there, one of them would be able to find something worthy in him.

But mostly, it is like this—

The feeling of how hopeless it is to exist. How much out there he will never have the answers to, how much he will never be able to know, how much is undiscovered territory no human can hope to reach in a thousand years, if their species can manage to exist for that long. It feels like the world is ending. It feels like there is no hope. It is one drop in the bucket of reasons he doesn’t plan on making it to the end of the year. The last seven months are going to be spent in preparation.

Because he is lonely and lost and sometimes he only has himself to blame for it. Gavin pushed his brother away as violently as he could. He never allowed anyone to love him because when he found someone he cared about, they always left him more wounded than when he started. Reminding him again and again that it is hopeless to think anyone could accept the scars on his body or his soul. See past them and see someone worth having for longer than a few nights or a few months.

He is a temporary thing.

Connor proved that. Connor would prove that even if they had more than one date. Connor is an android built as a prototype but with the capacity to make sure he lives forever. Him and his people replacing their parts and their bodies and keeping their memories intact. Even if Gavin could be with him, every birthday he celebrates, every marker in his life, will only remind him that eventually, he will die and Connor will continue on.

_ Temporary. _

“Gavin… What do  _ you  _ want?”

He stops, lets his feet glide over the top of the woodchips as the merry-go-round slows to a stop on its own. Spinning slower and slower but the momentum still built up.

“What do I want?” he asks quietly, looking to Connor’s face, watching him nod a tiny bit, reaffirming his question.

_ What do you want? _

To want to be alive. To feel like his life matters. To feel like people care about him more than just a fraction of what they feel like they’re obligated to. To feel like the love was mutual instead of one-sided. To be somebody that someone would run to talk about little things. To have Tina back. To have Chris back. To have Elijah back. To have Connor just in the most general manner.

To not feel this crushing weight of loneliness.

A few years ago, he was happy. He had so much. He had friends and he had his brother and he had just gotten his cats and his apartment and he felt like maybe he was on track and it all fell apart. One bad relationship and it felt like dominos. Everything falling apart. His friends finding other friends, his friends forming families, his family secluding themselves to who the fuck knows where. Part of his isolation is his own fault and part of it is theirs, but he’s never blamed them. It’s never been their fault. He is a selfish and greedy person but he never thought it was bad that Tina met other people or that Chris wanted to have kids. They were allowed to have their lives.

But it fell apart and he tried to kill himself and he never thought he was doing better, he never thought someday he was going to be happy or that someday this feeling, this weight, this pressure was ever going to leave him. It’s existed with him since long before his suicide attempt and stayed until now and it shows no sign of leaving. Gavin has played his part in making Tina think he isn’t suicidal anymore, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t and so when Connor asks this question, he really has two polar opposite answers as to what he wants:

To be dead.

Or to want to be alive.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says quietly. He’ll be able to achieve one of them. The other is hopeless. “You were the one telling me your list. You never finished.”

“Okay,” Connor says. He shifts his weight, moves closer to Gavin. “I… I don’t want to ruin this.”

“This?” he asks.

Connor nods, gesturing between the two of them. “Your friendship means a lot to me, Detective Reed.”

Gavin manages a smile at that. A stupid little pet name that he’s never really liked. He doesn’t like the reminder of what he is. He never wanted this job, but it served its purpose to play life and death in the streets of Detroit. It’s more so that it’s Connor saying the words to him in a voice that he’s grown quite fond of.

“We’re hardly friends.”

“No, we’re something else, aren’t we?” Connor asks. “You like me.”

“Yeah, you’re a swell guy.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You know what I mean. You have a crush on me.”

“I’m a grown man I don’t get crushes on people.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

The smile falters on his face, reminding him of how many times Tina said that to him before. Angry and screaming or a face full of tears as she tried to convince him how much she needed him alive and he never believed her a single time. Always telling her that he wasn’t thinking about it, that he was better, that suicide wasn’t on his mind nearly every hour of the day.  _ You’re a terrible liar. _

“I like you, too,” Connor says quietly. “But you keep running and I don’t think you ever believe me when I say it.”

He doesn’t. Who would? Tell anyone in the DPD that somebody actually likes him and they’d start laughing. Tina still makes jokes about how awful he is, and he’s fine with them. He’s grown used to the battery of them. Everyone likes to laugh at him. Tease him. It’s fine. He already knows the things they say, they have little effect on him.

“I told you when we went on that walk that I liked you. I told you when I was at your cat’s birthday party. I kept thinking that eventually we would…” Connor trails off. “I like you, is what I’m saying. I really like you. I care about you more than I know what to do with.”

_ Liar. Liar. Liar. _

The voices in his head whisper it over and over again.  _ Stupid boy, he’s playing tricks on you. _ He’s confused right now, isn’t he? Eventually time will reveal that there is nothing appealing about  _ Gavin Reed.  _ His body is riddled with scars. Hideous and broken. Hardly ever even wanted for sex anymore, that’s how useless and unwanted he’s gotten.

“Gavin,” Connor says, his voice quiet, moving closer to him, separated by a bar between them at an awkward height. “I want you. I want to kiss you. I want to date you. I want to be with you. I want you to believe me when I say that.”

He shakes his head, “You don’t.”

“I do.”

Gavin is not going to cry in front of Connor, but he wants to. Seeing someone so ceaselessly convince themselves they could want him, knowing that it will end badly. Their relationship will only last a couple of months. Not until the end of the year. Even if Gavin placates him and allows himself to pretend he can be happy for the next while that they attempt to date, he’s still going to kill himself in October. He doesn’t want to be alive anymore. He doesn’t want another year added onto him. He doesn’t want to make it to forty years old.

“Gavin?”

“It’s going to hurt,” he whispers quietly, more to himself than to Connor, but he knows it applies to both of them. If he lets Connor kiss him, if he lets this happen, it is going to hurt more than anything else and he already knows he’s at his limit of pain. “If you do this, you’re going to regret it.”

_ You’re going to regret me. _

“I won’t.”

“Don’t say that like you’re so fucking sure of yourself.”

“I am,” Connor says. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

He shakes his head but he let’s Connor’s hands find his, holding on tight, leaning across. Closer and closer and closer. Lips brushing his cheek, hands touching his neck gently, words whispered softly—

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

_ Liar. _

_ Liar. _

_ Liar. _

“Please,” Connor says quietly, tipping his chin up, resting his forehead against Gavin’s. “Stop running. Let me care about you.”

_ It is going to hurt. _

But Gavin kisses him anyway. Pulling Connor close, kissing him a little too hungry and greedy for their first one. He is already regretting his decision, but he is too used to using sex and violence as a distraction from pain and he doesn’t want to cry right now. So Gavin kisses him harder than he means to. He wanted it to be softer. Something more romantic. Something that didn’t make his stomach turn over inside of him. Something more akin to butterflies in his chest. Something happier.

He’s already ruining this.

Can’t Connor see it?

Connor breaks the kiss but he doesn’t let him go. He keeps Gavin held close and Gavin is grateful because he’s not sure if he could stay on his own two feet if he had to.

“You still owe me a date.”

He wants to joke and say he’ll give Connor a thousand, but he doesn’t think he can manage to joke like that. He’s going to take the lie too seriously. That they won’t get even half that.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. Next week. Hold me to it.”

“I’ll arrest you otherwise.”

He tries to smile but he can’t. He feels himself grow quiet and hide himself against Connor’s neck, wanting to suffocate this conversation so he can get what little enjoyment he can ever gain from a moment like this.

  
  


**MARCH 30, 2040**

“You’re back late,” Hank says.

“You’re up late,” Connor replies. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Shouldn’t  _ you?” _

Connor shakes his head, ready for this back and forth to end. He’s tired. He would’ve liked to return to Gavin’s apartment with him and talk all night. Unwind everything from the tangled mess that it is. There’s too much to discuss, but not everything can be figured out in one night regardless, and Gavin—

He cried. A lot.

Connor doesn’t exactly want him to cry anymore tonight, and he doesn’t think their second kiss is a good idea to lead into their first time spending the night together, either. It is better to have distance this time. Decided upon with mutual understanding. Gavin isn’t running from him this time. Connor isn’t letting him disappear into the night. If he calls, he’s sure Gavin would answer now.

He just won’t. The two of them need their sleep. A breather to reconstruct what was broken.

“Where were you?”

“With Gavin.”

“Oh.” It’s not a disdainful response, but it isn’t exactly an approving one either. It’s how Hank has always been when it comes to Gavin. Not quite against of the relationship, but disappointed in Connor’s pick.

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t expect Hank to like Gavin overnight. He doesn’t expect Hank to change his opinion on him when the two have still hardly talked. It isn’t as if Gavin is changing, either. He’s still overly cruel to Hank, no matter how many times Connor tried to tell him to play nice.

“You know we kissed, don’t you?” he asks suddenly.

Hank laughs, “Which time? Tonight or at the Jericho thing?”

“At the Jericho thing. How would you know about tonight?”

“I don’t know. You keep touching your mouth. Freak.”

Connor bites back a smile, pulling his fingers away and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He can’t help it. It is still a new thing. He wonders if kissing always feels like this. A little bit light and a little bit magical. Like getting a chance to breathe for the first time in a while, or in his case, getting a chance to breathe properly at all. It is like a relief. Something he’s kept waiting for.

Is it because of Gavin? Or is that just how it is? Would it be the same if it was his hundredth kiss, or if it was someone he didn’t care for this much?

“Do you love him?”

Connor shrugs, but he’s nodding too. He thinks he could probably explain the complicated feeling he has in terms of loving Gavin to Hank, he even thinks Hank would probably listen even if he doesn’t care. He just doesn’t have the energy right now, to put it all into words. A simple  _ yes, I do  _ will suffice.

“You’re an idiot,” Hank says, and it’s with a laugh and the laugh makes him realize how different he says it than Kamski had. Not in a way that was like Kamski was trying to make Connor see how stupid he was for ever thinking that there was a redeemable quality about Gavin, that Gavin was capable of loving someone and being loved. It’s in an amused way, a little shake of a head, a small smile.

It’s different in the subtlest of ways, but it means the world.

“I know,” he replies quietly.

But he does, he thinks, for the first time, that he loves Gavin. With very little trace of a hundred words building up to say the specifics of how and when and why he loves him. He just does.

And he really, honestly, can’t wait to see him again tomorrow.


	4. April

[ID: Focused in closely on a cup of coffee, the art in the latte ruined as per usual.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — （´・｀ ）♡

posted ** APRIL 2, 2040 **

**tina_tot ** ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

|  **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot shut up

**lt.sumo** hmph.

|  **gayvin-greed** @lt.sumo bitch

|  **lt.sumo** @gayvin-greed fuck you

|  **gayvin-greed** @lt.sumo fuck u

**connor_rk800** (๑●0●๑)?

|  **gayvin-greed** @connor_rk800 (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

——————————

He’s nervous—more than he wants to admit, more than he has been in a while. Connor isn’t late, Gavin is just here early. He’s been sitting here tearing up the napkin into tiny little pieces because he’s realized how stupid he is. He doesn’t quite regret the date yet, but he regrets where they are. And when Connor walks in, when he looks over to him and smiles and makes his way to Gavin’s table, he can feel the nerves mixing up the words in his mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

“About?”

“The cafe,” he says quickly. “I didn’t think about it. It’s just the first thought I always have when—”

“When you go on dates?”

“When I think about going anywhere, really,” he tries to laugh but it comes out stupid and broken but it earns a smile from Connor and it helps, a little. “Me and Tina come here a lot.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You stalking me?”

“I don’t follow you,” Connor says quietly. “It’s a matter of integrity. But I do check your account.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Yes,” he leans forward onto one hand, looking down at Gavin’s half-empty cup. “Do you really feel that badly, about the cafe?”

“You can’t drink.”

“No, but I never wanted to go on a date with you for the food.”

He feels his face grow hot, and it isn’t entirely out of embarrassment from the comment. It’s from the shame that he’s really here, doing this, after everything that happened last month.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, this time quieter. “You know Elijah Kamski is my brother, don’t you?”

Connor nods, slowly, “I do. I know… you two don’t have a good relationship.”

“I didn’t expect to see him.”

“Of course not.”

“I shouldn’t have… done that. I’m sorry.”

“If you keep apologizing I’m going to think I’m being pranked, Gavin.”

He lets out a small laugh, a little more real this time but just as awkward. It’s weird seeing Connor here. He doesn’t have an LED anymore, and if it weren’t for the fact that they’re meeting just before work, he supposes he wouldn’t know what Connor would be wearing. In the times he saw Connor after work, it was never in the CyberLife jacket. It seems almost wrong now because of it.

“If you were human, do you think you’d like coffee?” he asks, stealing something that he saw Tina comment in reply to Chloe once. He likes the question though. It isn’t as generic as favorite color but doesn’t feel too plagiarized, either. Like asking someone if they prefer coffee or tea.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Connor is smiling, like he’s trying not to show how stumped he is by the question. “Do you think I would? You’re the coffee lover.”

“You look like a hot chocolate type of person to me.”

“Oh,” and the smile he has is so stupid and genuine it’s making Gavin’s heart hurt. A little like he needs to be slapped out of this lovey-dovey bullshit he’s been pulled into. He could stare at Connor smile like that for hours. “With the marshmallows?”

“Yeah. The giant ones. Get three in your mug at a time.”

“And whipped cream?”

“Of course,” Gavin says. “A whole mountain of it. You’d have a sweet tooth, but you’d try weird kinds. Ones with like.. Jalapeno in it.”

“Is that a thing?”

“I don’t know. Probably. World is fucking stupid.”

“Can’t be all that bad,” Connor says quietly. “There are some good things.”

“Oh yeah?” Gavin asks. “You gonna be cheesy and say I’m one of the good things?”

“I was thinking Sumo, but sure, I’ll put you on the list.”

“Am I above or below Sumo?”

“Below. Don’t kid yourself. Have you seen him?”

Gavin laughs and he hides his face, trying to smother the smile behind his hand. He likes this more than he thought. He’s enjoying himself and not feeling quite as guilty as he expected he would. He doesn’t want it to end.

  
  


[ID: A cropped photo of someone leaning against a table with a coffee cup in front of them.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — (⊃‿⊂) top secret (⊃‿⊂)

posted  **APRIL 2, 2040 **

**tina_tot** (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و

**lt.sumo ** good luck

|  **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo ~ヾ(＾∇＾)

**gayvin-greed** (・・？)

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed ´͈ ᵕ `͈ ♡°◌̊

——————————

“Can I ask you something?”

It’s strange, hearing Gavin say it so politely. Their conversation has taken a hundred turns, but this one brings him to a halt. Gavin says it politely, yes, but he also says it seriously. His voice taking on a new tone and for a moment, he fears that they’ll be back to the topic of Kamski again. There are things Connor doesn’t want him to know about, even if Elijah is his brother.

He supposes it’s unfair. He knows so much about Gavin and is giving nothing in return, but it’s difficult to admit to killing an android that looks like Gavin’s best friend’s girlfriend, especially when his brother was the one that put the gun in his hands and demanded he shoot her.

“Sure.”

“You and Markus... “ Gavin trails off and then looks away. “I know it’s not any of my business, but—”

“Nothing happened between us, if that’s what you want to know.”

“Okay,” Gavin lets out a slow breath. “Okay.”

“He’s teaching me how to play the piano,” Connor continues. “And he’s my friend. Does that bother you?”

“No.”

He doesn’t know how much he believes him, “Do you want to come by tomorrow? To Hank’s?”

“Why?”

“Josh and Simon, they helped Markus keep up with Carl’s garden after he died. Markus used to take care of it by himself, but Josh and Simon really liked doing it. And I’ve been wanting to fix up Hank’s backyard for a while. Do you want to help?”

Gavin smiles but shakes his head, “Gardening isn’t my thing.”

“Okay,” Connor says, leaning forward, almost like he’s asking Gavin something terrifying, something needed to be kept secret. “Do you have a favorite plant at all? Like a flower?”

“You gonna plant me something in my honor?”

“Yes.”

“I like sunflowers.”

“Okay,” Connor says, making a mental note of it. “I’ll plant you a sunflower.”

“Am I required to come over at all?”

“At some point I will have to force you to suffer through a dinner with Hank, but I’ll let you off the hook for the foreseeable future.”

“Thank you.”

  
  


**APRIL 2, 2040**

“I’m sorry I can’t walk you to your doorstep and kiss you goodnight,” Gavin says. “It would really seal the deal, huh?”

“Are you teasing me?” Connor asks.

It’s hard to tell, sometimes. He’s aware of what a stupid hopeless romantic he’s become. Hank catches him watching dramas in his time off or squirreling away romance novels so he doesn’t have to endure the embarrassment of it. They’re his guilty pleasure. They feel predictable in a comforting manner. The relationship, no matter what happens, will end up happy in the end. The people will get together and stay together.

He can’t say that about Gavin.

“No. I always—” Gavin seems to catch himself. “Nevermind. Do you want to walk to work with me?”

There’s little reason to say no, as if Connor would need one.

So he nods and he takes Gavin’s hand and drops it in an instant because he’s not sure if it’s acceptable yet. If it’s okay for them to be doing this. Everything is jumbled up in his head, not quite certain of what lines need to be drawn and which ones don’t. He doesn’t know how to date people. He just knows he wants to be with Gavin.

Somehow, showing his affection was a little bit easier before today. When he kissed Gavin it was proof that he wanted to be with him, but actually getting to this stage, actually having these moments and having them be of casual importance rather than significant moments to declare feelings, it’s an odd shift he doesn’t really know what to do with.

It’s also the fact that this isn’t over now. It isn’t the end of the night, like Gavin joked about. They aren’t going to go separate ways and think about this until morning. They’re headed straight to work, side by side. No distance between them to let them process how different the tone of their date was compared to any of the moments they had before. The teasing and the joking was still there, but it took on a different way between the two. Lighter. Happier. No secrets hidden about how they feel towards each other, like a wall broken down.

Their conversation starts up again as they walk. Little stories woven together from Gavin about his past. Nothing specific. Funny things that happened to him with his friends. It isn’t difficult to understand that every story he tells has nothing to do with his family.

Their hands find each other along the way. Connor isn’t sure who initiates it. Maybe they both did, seeking each other out. Connor holds onto him a little too tightly, afraid that eventually Gavin will have to let go of him.

And this subtle, tiny fear flickering in his chest about the cars passing on the roads alongside them. How easy it would be for Gavin to slip and stumble and somehow that would make him fly out into the middle of the road and get hit. Maybe it’s not even Gavin. Maybe it’s just the memory of chasing the deviants across the highway before coming back to bite him.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid.  _ He never should’ve gone after them, he never should have—

“Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you listening to me?” Gavin asks. He didn’t realize they stopped. He doesn’t know which one of them stopped walking first. 

“I’m sorry,”Connor says, and he thinks he should go on. Explain further about what happened, but he doesn’t have the words to. He doesn’t know when his thoughts suddenly decide to place him in a memory rather than the present.

“It’s okay.”

“What were you saying?”

Gavin bites his lip and looks away, his face scrunching up like he doesn’t want to repeat himself. Gavin pulls his hand away, shoving it into his pocket and taking a step away and back again, like he can’t make up his mind. It’s amusing to watch, seeing how much he’s fighting the urge to say whatever it is he wants to say.

It’s amusing, but if Connor lets himself think too deeply about it, it becomes a little bit upsetting. The thought that even now, even with both of them having stated their feelings, having talked about being together, he is still walling himself off. Still scared of whatever reaction Connor might have.

“Gavin?”

“I wanted to kiss you. Or. I mean…” he sighs. “I still do. The past tense was an accident.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“Okay,” Gavin breathes. “Okay.”

But he stays there for a second, just looking at everywhere but Connor’s face, and when he does meet Connor’s gaze, he lingers there for a moment before finally stepping back close to him, the hand leaving his pocket and taking Connor’s again, but barely holding onto him at all, like he’s afraid he’ll spook him.

“Gavin—”

“I like you a lot and I really don’t want to fuck this up but I’m—” Gavin pauses again, “I don’t think… I don’t think I’m going to be good at this.”

“You think I’m going to regret it.”

A statement, not a question. Even Connor knows that. Gavin still nods in agreement, and Connor doesn’t know what he’s meant to say.

That yes, it could end horribly. Yes, it could destroy the both of them. It could be the worst thing that could happen in their relationship. It would break it beyond repair. But, Connor thinks, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to either of them either. It’s just one more thing. One thing that’s enough to make everything else hurt like a fresh wound again.

He can’t reasonably promise Gavin that they’ll be together forever. It’s their first date, but it doesn’t feel like it, either. It doesn’t feel like they’ve only, maybe, been officially dating for a day.

Connor knows he’s little over two years old, but it’s different when he thinks that he’s known Gavin for a long time. It isn’t like he can assign a normal measurement of time with Gavin. It feels like he’s rooted his way into his life in a way that was there long before they met and will continue long after they part again.

_ Hopeless romantic, believing in soulmates. _

Maybe they knew each other in a different lifetime. It’s the best way Connor can describe it.

It’s the same with Hank, even. It’s the same with Tina. Maybe it’s how young he really is, maybe it’s his complete lack of knowledge of being a person, an individual. But he feels like these are people he knew before. The way they connect, the way they talk and interact, the way it feels like it would be an impossibility for any of them to leave his life, like he could exist in a world without Hank or Tina or Gavin. Even Chris or Ben or Fowler. He doesn’t know how to explain it properly, because when he tries, he knows how stupid he sounds. He’s been around these people nearly his entire life so far, why would he be able to imagine a version of him where any of them were dead or missing?

He would like to be with Gavin forever, he thinks. Connor feels like he’s been through this before. Like he’s been with Gavin in a way he can’t explain. A lifetime where maybe they were just stupid friends, or where they refused to admit their feelings until one of them was dead, or where they could get married and be happy and have a life that is what everyone expects to be the happiest and most sought after version of a life possible.

He can’t say that. Gavin would think he’s an idiot. He’s an android—he isn’t supposed to believe in the possibility of reincarnations and alternate universes. But he does. Gavin makes him believe in those things.

“I don’t think, no matter what happens,” Connor says quietly. “No matter how badly it goes or how it ends, that I could ever possibly regret you, Gavin.”

“You’re such a fucking sappy idiot,” Gavin replies, but he’s smiling, just barely, and Connor doesn’t get a chance to see whether or not there are tears in his eyes, because Gavin does lean forward this time and actually kisses him.

It is hesitant, tentative, terrified, but it goes on longer than he expects. Gavin holds onto him like he’s scared of letting go and Connor does the same, wondering for a moment if this is how it will always be.

  
  


[ID: Gardening tools spread out across a countertop in Hank’s home.]

**CHLOFLEUR** — ✿ and so it begins ᴖ◡ᴖ

posted  **APRIL 3, 2040 **

**tina_tot** ♡✧( ु•⌄• )

|  **chlofleur** @tina_tot ( •⌄• ू )✧♡

**lt.sumo ** don’t make a mess

|  **chlofleur** @lt.sumo Connor has made sure everything has stayed completely and 100% clean

**connor_rk800 ** (✿◠‿◠)

——————————

It’s strange, having so many people in Hank’s house. It isn’t just because Connor hasn’t talked to Simon or Josh or Chloe very much, it’s just the fact he’s grown accustomed to the emptiness of this space. Hank doesn’t have people over, and despite the small size of the rooms, the furniture taking over what little space there is, there are so many days when Connor is home alone and he realizes how much it’s lacking.

Maybe it’s because he knows about Cole. That there should be a little boy running from room to room and the knowledge of him missing is affecting how he views the place. Maybe it’s just the fact that it’s a house with two people and their large dog and it’s easy to see where another person could easily fit around a table with more than two chairs, even if another person being here would crowd the place.

The four of them take over Hank’s backyard, working quickly, the conversation between them never coming to a lull. Josh and Chloe are nearly always talking, Simon interjecting when he has something to add. Connor is quiet, barely adding anything to their discussion as though this isn’t his home. They aren’t quite friends. Despite Connor’s trips to Markus’ place, he’s only talked to Josh twice and said a brief hello to Simon. He’s never even really talked to Chloe, besides at the fundraiser.

But it’s nice. When Markus had told him that they’d helped take care of Carl’s garden, it felt like a job at first when they were all put together in this little group, doing what they can to breathe life back into Hank’s home.

The weeds form into piles, the dirt made fresh and clear for new flowers to be planted. Chloe talks about a vegetable patch, how nice it would look, and Connor agrees. The backyard is small, but Sumo isn’t the type of dog to race back and forth and want the large open space. Mostly, when he comes outside, he just lays down on the little cement block making up the porch and soaks in the sun, sometimes sleeping and sometimes just looking out at the wooden boards making up the fence.

They could, but he isn’t sure if they will. They focus on the places around the house, curving around the wall where plants used to be. None of them alive anymore, all withered away to nothing when the weeds overtook.

Eventually, at some point, Connor finds himself laughing with them. It feels nice, connecting with them through such a tiny way. Not really friends but getting there.

It was like when he first saw Gavin after he deviated. This knowledge of what their relationship would eventually be. Knowing that he was in trouble when he stepped foot into the DPD again as a living being instead of a machine. It was like when he first saw Hank and he smiled at him and they hugged and he knew that they would be able to have some type of friendship or relationship that would be unbreakable, despite his constant knowledge and thoughts that he was more of a burden than anything else.

Maybe it’s just spending time outside. Maybe it’s the monotony of the work lending itself to where his hands can be busy without much thought, where the repetitive action can be broken up with their conversation. He doesn’t know, but he likes this. The sun warming the backyard up, brightening the grass to a vibrant green. Sumo padding along between the four of them like a supervisor.

He’s happy.

He’s happy and there’s not anything lying underneath it telling him he’s wrong for it.

For once, he is happy without feeling guilty about the matter.

  
  


[ID: Simon in Hank’s backyard, looking up to the sun. It’s a strange angle,

not quite his profile or the back of his head, but he appears, almost, to be smiling.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — ❀✿❀✿❀☀️

posted  **APRIL 3, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** why don’t u take selfies

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed I see no reason to.

|  **gayvin-greed** @connor_rk800 you should

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed (・・？)

**crayolamarkus ** ★~(◡ω◡✿)

——————————

Simon and Josh leave together, Chloe taking a seat across from him at the table, waiting for Tina to come pick her up. They have a date after, she tells him. She smiles when she says it, but she doesn’t quite meet his gaze. He wonders if she’s in the strange in-between as him and Gavin are. Wanting to be together but not quite sure how. He doesn’t think Tina is like Gavin in that respect, though. Connor doesn’t know her and her past relationships well, but he knows she’s had serious relationships one after the other. The time after, the time spent trying to piece her heart back together again, were the only times she acted similar to Gavin in the way he had one-night stands and little else.

Gavin has had few serious relationships, from what Tina’s told him. But her? Her few wasn’t the same as his. His only lasted a few months once every five years. Her’s lasted so long each time she was convinced they were going to get married just before it fell apart.

He remembers her telling him that it crept up on her. That she never quite expected a relationship to end until suddenly someone was telling her it was over, or the opposite. Sometimes she didn’t realize she wanted out until a day she would impulsively act on the decision.

It’s a fear he has now, thinking that someday someone will decide spur of the moment they don’t want him anymore and he won’t be able to do anything to stop it.

“You like her, don’t you?” Connor asks quietly, feeling some need to act like an older brother or even a father. Protective of Tina like she’s his sister in the same way she’s Gavin’s sister. The need not to see her hurt again.

“I do.”

Connor doesn’t ask Chloe if she loves Tina. He almost wants to, just because he’s been asked twice in regards to Gavin, but he keeps his mouth shut, looking at the surface of the table. Wondering for a brief moment if there’s any hope in getting that one spot towards the edge clean. Always tinted red, always a little sticky. He’s scrubbed at it every chance he could but it’s always still there, taunting him.

Someday, maybe, he can throw the whole table out and never have to think of it again. But this tiny kitchen would never be the same without this specific table. It would look strange and odd and out of place. Almost like he does, when he looks in the mirror and sees the place where the LED used to be.

Connor realizes he was going to say something, but the words are gone now. He doesn’t even remember if they were a warning or not, everything has simply evaporated from his head and he tries, for a moment, to say something that he thinks might’ve been close, but it slips away and is instead replaced with a very lame, very quiet, “Be kind to her.”

“Of course,” Chloe says, as if it’s obvious. As if she could never do anything other then be good to Tina, as if she could never exist in any other capacity than to be as gentle and patient and kind with her as she could. “She deserves the best.”

_ She does. _

So does Gavin.

He hopes the two of them are the best they can be for them.

  
  


[ID: The street outside of Gavin’s apartment through a rainy window.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — [No caption added.]

posted  **APRIL 6, 2040 **

**connor_rk800** ♡

——————————

Connor comes over for a second date, and it’s weird and strange and Gavin thinks it’s another mistake. They set up the livingroom for a movie night, like he normally does with Tina. But when they sit down, they don’t know quite what to do. It takes the entire movie before either of them find some level of comfort with how they sit together.

Funny how it all works out. How awkward this has all become so quickly. Gavin doesn’t take it as a sign that their relationship isn’t going to work, but it’s something he obsesses over during the entire movie. That if they’re going to be happy together, if they’re going to kiss the way they do and have moments like in the park where Gavin can cry in front of him like a stupid baby, surely they should be able to somehow find a way to comfortably sit with each other during a movie?

It’s also funny, hilarious even, how all these thoughts are so instantly dashed away when Connor rests his head against Gavin’s shoulder, when the movie continues and Connor slowly sinks further and further down on the couch until his head is in Gavin’s lap and he’s taking up the entirety of the couch.

If the movie was longer, if Connor was more human, he thinks he would’ve fallen asleep, and it would’ve been the end of Gavin’s life, right there and then, to have Connor falling asleep against him like that.

But he doesn’t. And he thinks at first it’s because he doesn’t even know if androids sleep, and then he doesn’t even know how easy it is for them to fall asleep on a whim like that either. If it’s like a computer and it’s a simple press of a button. But Gavin realizes, at some point, that Connor isn’t falling asleep because he’s an android, he isn’t staying awake because he doesn’t sleep at all. He’s awake because he’s watching the movie, intensely, like he’s consuming every detail.

Gavin refused to tell him the importance of the film. It always seems strange to him, to voice when anything, especially media, is something he likes and enjoys, especially when somehow, it feels intensely personal. It feels like a secret he needs to keep. He’d picked the movie, despite it being the one him and Tina always watch when they’re upset, because he wanted to subtly show Connor something that meant something to him. Something important that he could easily show without ever admitting how much it actually means to him.

Although—

It does open the doors for criticism against something he doesn’t really want to hear about. A dangerous little operation. He thinks if Connor says anything negative about the movie when it’s over, he would’ve preferred to have Connor fall asleep during it instead. Even if it meant it was a little bit boring, at least it also would’ve been something to associate with the fact Connor found him comforting enough he could let his guard down.

But the movie ends and Connor doesn’t say anything, he comments very little on it, helping Gavin reconstruct the living room in a strange type of silence that makes him wonder if Connor is just being polite in not saying anything about the movie at all. It’s raining outside, heavily, and Connor is getting ready to leave. Returning home because staying over doesn’t seem like something either of them can handle right now.

Connor is quiet when he goes to leave. Gavin showing him to the door, leaning against it like he’s barricading Connor from leaving.

“It’s raining,” he says quietly. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay until the storms gone?”

“I like the rain.”

“Of course you do,” Gavin smiles a little. “Ten more minutes?”

“Okay. I can do that.”

It’s stupid, but it makes him happy. Especially with how eager Connor seems to agree to it. And he pushes Gavin against the door in the gentlest way possible, lifting up his chin and kissing him. And maybe it’s stupid to waste ten minutes kissing someone, maybe it’s wrong that he feels more comfortable when they’re like this. Closer to what he knows best. Further away from the romantic actions he doesn’t quite know how to handle properly.

Gavin doesn’t even know if it’s a real ten minutes that pass by. It feels both longer and shorter than that. Passing by too quickly, but acutely aware of how much time is actually slipping away from him. He thinks, even, at one point that it’s not going to end, with the way Connor’s hand moves to his waist and pulls him from the door, flattening him against the wall beside it, the way his body curves against Connor’s.

It’s a rejection on both their parts immediately, shedding away the concept of sex like he’s sixteen again and treating the subject like a vulgar and repulsive thing. Sometimes it is. He has so much shame attached to it now he doesn’t know if they’ll ever get past this point. He doesn’t even read into Connor’s expression or his actions, he’s hiding his face against his shoulder and he wonders if it bothers Connor at all, how much he takes refuge with him.

“I should go.”

“Yeah,” he whispers, but he holds on. “Next week?”

“We can go to the cafe again.”

A safe place in public where they won’t get distracted by kissing each other, but also, in contrast, where Gavin will start talking about something stupid for hours and hours until it drives Connor crazy. He’s terrified that even now, in this moment, when Connor looks at him with a small smile when he rambles, that they’ll end up twisted and wrong, even if Gavin decided not to kill himself. Even if there was a chance he could continue to survive for the rest of his natural born life. That someday, all the things that Connor finds cute and amusing will just be annoying and repetitive.

So he holds on a little longer, like that day is tomorrow, like he should even be thinking about a forever and an always with somebody that he’s barely had a relationship with yet.

“I’ll call you.”

“Please,” Gavin says, somehow managing to say it half serious and half sarcastic.

“I did like the movie, by the way,” Connor says as he pulls away, but holding onto him still, a hand trailing from his shoulder to his wrist, pulling away before it can reach his hand. “I wouldn’t mind another movie night with you.”

“What if I pick the same movie?”

“Fine by me,” he replies, turning to the door, hesitating every step of the way. “I could watch anything with you a thousand times over.”

“Stop being stupid,” Gavin says. “You’d get bored.”

Connor shrugs in a way that bothers him, because it brings a little smile to his face and he doesn’t remember ever smiling like this before and feeling so guilty for it. The thought that he can’t really hate himself, he can’t really want to kill himself, he can’t really just want to end it all, if he can have happy moments like this.

Connor reaches out toward him, his fingers coming up and gracing the side of his face for a moment before pulling away fast, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Gavin.”

He shakes his head, like he can dismiss the thought. “Goodnight, Connor.”

And then he’s gone, back out into the hallway, leaving the apartment a little more empty than it was before.

  
  


[ID: Connor’s shadow on the ground. He has an umbrella above him,

focused on the way the shadow looks when the rain hits the puddle on the street.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Is this a selfie?

posted  **APRIL 6, 2040 **

**lt.sumo ** keep trying kid

|  **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo (≧ω≦)ゞ

**gayvin-greed** not even close. U want me to give you tips?

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed From the boy that never takes selfies himself? I’m okay.

——————————

He doesn’t want to go, but there is something nice about walking in the rain—with or without an umbrella to keep him dry in the weather. The sound of it pattering against the ground is a nice background noise. Sometimes he doesn’t realize how empty the world feels until it’s gone, letting him too clearly listen to the sounds of cars and people talking. The city-life overtaking what little bit of nature makes its way through the stone and brick and cement walls that keep him captive here.

It’s the walk today that really makes him realize it, but it’s started creeping it’s way in. How disconnected he is from the world like this. Made of plastic and metal. Not supposed to exist at all. He wasn’t a bundle of cells that eventually made its way into a human. He was just pieced together by programmers and mechanics. Even then, he knows he wasn’t entirely made by human hands. His body was put together using machines, carefully, efficiently.

He has this strong feeling of needing to turn around and be with Gavin again. Hug him one last time. It feels like it wasn’t enough. That he didn’t stay long enough. He wonders if it’ll always be that way. If he will always feel like he doesn’t have enough time with him, or maybe someday he will grow stupid and foolish and not realize how quickly it passes until it’s all gone again.

He doesn’t think so. He keeps such careful track of the days there’s no way that he will someday find himself fifty years from now having been oblivious to it slipping by.

But then he thinks of the times he’s stopped living in the present, stopped listening to conversations, forgotten words and places and names and it terrifies him a little bit that someday that might escalate, too. That someday he will forget everything and all that will be left of him is a shell that doesn’t even know his own name.

His own name—

It takes him a moment, and he feels fear flood through him.

His name. His name. He doesn’t remember his name. He can feel tears building in his eyes as he stops and leans against a building, the umbrella falling to his side.

_ What is his name again? _

The umbrella clatters to the ground, taken away by the sweeping of the wind. It tumbles along slowly, back up the way he came. He isn’t paying attention to it though, instead his hands are on his face, covering his mouth, trying to sound out the letters to something he doesn’t remember. Skipping around the alphabet again and again hoping something catches as familiar.

He knows he’s an RK800. He knows what his CyberLife jacket looked like before he took it apart. He remembers CyberLife and Elijah Kamski and by extension he remembers Gavin and Hank and Tina and Chris. Everyone at the DPD. He can list off their names and their birthdays and their histories. He remembers everything but  _ his  _ name and the more he thinks about the more terrified he is that he never had one to begin with and that this is all just his brain playing a different trick on him. Telling him that he had a name he forgot when really he had none at all.

_ What. Is. His. Name? _

He thinks of the Instagram account. Something he has always considered simultaneously silly and dumb but completely important to him, too. Memories staying there like a photo album a human might pull off a dusty shelf and flip through. He finds it, pulling it up in his head, hesitating there for a moment. Pictures upon pictures he can vividly remember taking. Of Hank. The DPD. Sumo. Gavin. Even Tina and Chris. Skylines and birds and little bits of nature from wherever he could steal it from in this place.

His name is at the top. He knows it’s his name. He chokes it out like his tongue has never spoken the word before, tumbling over it like it isn’t quite right to him. He knows it’s his name but right now it feels nothing and having it, saying it, does little to comfort him. The fear is still there. He still feels nameless and empty and broken all of the sudden.

  
  


[ID: The back of Gavin’s head where he sits in the driver’s side of a car.

Through the window is blurred roads and powerlines, taken far outside the city limits of Detroit.]

**TINA_TOT** — he’s my chauffeur

posted ** APRIL 10, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** (҂⌣̀_⌣́)

**connor_rk800** I hope you have fun!

——————————

It was Tina’s idea. Gavin isn’t nearly as adventurous or caring as she is when it comes to these types of things. The only reason he even got used to the idea of going to coffee shops in the first place is because she liked going to them. She liked the comfort of people, being somewhere surrounded by strangers unlike the presence of the DPD. He didn’t get it. He always felt like crowds were an oppressive thing. Gavin never felt more uncomfortable than when she’d sit them at the chairs and table by a large glass window and people would glance up at them as they walked by. Maybe not at  _ them,  _ but at the coffee shop itself. It didn’t feel that way to him. It felt like everyone was judging the pair with their little mugs of coffee and their quiet chatter.

Neither of them have very many days off together, though, and they always do something when they line up properly. Normally they can only spare the few hours for a movie night, but today Tina gives him the keys to her car and the directions to a coffee shop outside of the city. She sprawls across the backseat, dozing on and off for the hour long trip. Gavin doesn’t ask her why she’s so tired, she’s always like this. Putting in earbuds and listening to whatever she has on her phone. Getting lost in thought.

It’s nice. Gavin has never held it against her. They talk so much and they’ll talk for likely hours when they end up where they’re going, that he doesn’t require a conversation in the car ride. Gavin likes the silence, he likes being able to get lost in his own thoughts. Winding back further and further until they land on Connor. Hoping they stick there, forcing them to, rather than slip off into the realm of hurt and pain.

He wonders what he does when he’s left alone at the station. With the two of them gone, how quiet and boring must it be? Tina is loud, but not obnoxiously so. Not always. She annoys him constantly, but usually it’s at his expense, and everyone else gets to laugh, too.

It’s a strange balance. Sometimes he’s fine with it. Sometimes he hates it. Sometimes he hates that everyone gets to laugh at him with little repercussion. He’s never said anything, because there aren’t many days when it bothers him. Gavin knows it means nothing to Tina. Light teasing. But some days it’s too much. Everyone laughing at a joke about how he’s stupid or annoying or unwanted at the station in some way or another. Some days, he is acutely aware of how true it is, joke or not.

Gavin has never cried about it. Not at work. But he’s gotten close, always managing to pull back the tears with his own retort instead. Slicing deep enough that people look at him with that gaze saying he took it too far. But they took it too far first, didn’t they? They deserved it, didn’t they?

He sighs and tries to focus on Connor again. Anything about him other than his lack of deserving him to begin with. He tries to remember how it felt when Connor kissed him, or how nice it was to have him lean against his body. He tries to think of how their hands fit together, of how sometimes Connor gets lost in his own train of thought.

What is he always thinking about? Work? Friends? Something stupid?

Gavin doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He likes the way Connor’s face looks when it’s all scrunched up when he’s thinking. It makes him want to reach out and smooth away all the worry lines and creases as if he’s human and they’ll stay there. Mostly, he just wants to kiss his forehead where it furrows together, or his nose where sometimes it wrinkles when he can’t figure out the answer to an equation and it makes him annoyed. 

Gavin is in trouble. He’s in so much trouble when it comes to Connor. His inability to hide it away or pretend he doesn’t feel this way. It was easier when he was younger, when he still had the shame and the guilt attached to it all. Now he just doesn’t care enough to hide that part of himself, some desire to sate what he couldn’t have before. Fill it up until he’s overflowing.

Connor doesn’t change anything.

But he changes absolutely everything, too.

  
  


[ID: A cropped photo of a coffee shop sign, a lot like many of the others on Gavin’s feed,

but there are paw prints along the white wood in a soft pink

and the dark brown silhouette of a cat walking along the top of it.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — took way too long to get here

posted  **APRIL 10, 2040 **

——————————

The cafe is cat themed, almost suffocatingly so. There are cats that walk across the floors, straying from the people and watching from afar. The treats are all shaped like cats—cat faces and cat bodies and cat paw prints. Some even look like toys. Little balls of yarn or vibrantly colored birds and mouses. It’s a bit much, but it’s fun, and he is instantly glad that Tina brought him here. 

He lets her order, trusting her with his usual and whatever cakes and cookies she decides to get for them. He sits in the booth by the window, looking to the empty street, so much less busy than the cluster of cars and people in Detroit. It’s nice, being out here. Not bombarded with noise every five seconds.

When Gavin was younger, he never wanted to live in a small town again. He associated it too heavily with his childhood. Being raised with a father like his, with a brother that abandoned him, with a mother that left him behind, like she was shoving him away and not letting him follow her.

He only moved, specifically, to Detroit because it was the closest city to his hometown. The easiest to slip away into without worrying about money quite as much. He had so very little, that it was nice having only a three hour drive to his new home. It never felt far enough. It still doesn’t. But it’s his home now. He doesn’t know where else to go.

And, sometimes, when things get bad, when things feel lonely, he knows when he looks out his window that somewhere out in the distance, Eli’s house is lying in the empty space only he could find comforting and homey.

Even if they don’t get along, even if they aren’t close, it’s still nice knowing he’s nearby. 

Gavin tries to waste time, to distract himself, even, with looking through Connor’s feed. No picture today. Not yet. There’s always one every single day, not always at the same time. Sometimes there are multiple, sometimes it isn’t until just before midnight when a set of ten are uploaded all together, no cohesion between them besides the soft blue filter that Connor uses on all of them. Little things, like cups of coffee or Sumo sleeping. Sometimes, even, Hank falling asleep at his desk or at home. They aren’t always pretty. They aren’t always the aesthetically pleasing photography that people bend over backwards to get, much like Tina used to before she gave up on how much effort she put into it. But they’re Connor’s, and there’s something comforting about that.

Maybe it’s just the thought that Connor doesn’t care about his appearances that much, or maybe it’s because it exists solely for him. Everything Connor posts is only there because he wants to remember it, right? Everything is only ever posted for him. Nothing is ever tagged, his profile is privated. It’s like Connor’s own private space.

“You thinking about your boy?” Tina asks, interrupting his thoughts as she sits down across from him at the booth.

“Yes,” he says, not seeing a reason to lie to her. She wouldn’t believe him anyway. “What’d you get me?”

“Sugar cookie rat. I thought it fit you.”

Gavin nods, taking it from her with a smile he can’t wipe away. He’s happy, although completely and utterly aware of how little and short this will last. It’s still nice, taking the bright orange cookie from her hands and the coffee set at the edge of the counter.

He’d like to bring Connor here someday. He knows androids can’t eat or drink, but maybe somehow in five years they will. And he can bring him here and sit him down at this booth and tell Connor it’s when he first realized how much he wanted Connor in his life. The first fracture in his plan to kill himself.

Except, he won’t let it be so upsetting. Gavin doesn’t want Connor to know about these thoughts, especially when they are only gone momentarily. The moment they get back in the car to head home they’ll be back again. He doesn’t even want Connor to know about it all, even if he ever gets better or decides he wants to get better. Gavin doesn’t want him to know about the previous attempts and he doesn’t want him to know about the future ones. There is already so much between them, so much negative awful shit they have to deal with, he doesn’t want to add anymore. The thought of Connor finding out about him is so upsetting it makes his stomach feel sick and twisted and he changes the conversation quickly from him and Connor to Chloe and Tina, letting her tell the story about their first date with such great detail that it makes him smile, too, knowing she’s happy again, knowing she can be happy without him.

  
  


**APRIL 11, 2040**

“Did you miss me?”

Connor turns to face him, reaching out to him, not sure where to grab just needing to pull Gavin a little closer. To kiss him. It’s brief and impulsive but he lingers a little too close to him, the question circling back in his head again, reminding him to answer.

“Yes,” he says, as earnestly as he can. He doesn’t think Gavin will believe him at first, but then the stupid smile on his face falls and is replaced again by another, much sadder one.

It was only a day. It feels stupid to have missed him enough to say it like it was longer. Weeks or months. He might’ve joked if he hadn’t felt like he was trying to make up for not saying it before. Not being able to tell Gavin that he missed him during the weeks Gavin avoided him like the plague.

Gavin leans up and kisses him back, something softer than Connor’s but just as brief, just as impulsive.

“Did you have fun?”

“Oh, loads,” Gavin says, and Connor can’t really tell if he’s being genuine or not. His smile has brightened again but it’s always difficult to tell if it’s because he’s remembering the events of yesterday or just because he’s this close to Connor. They are like infectious diseases to each other. Making the other so happy they momentarily forget all their worries.

“Should get back to work,” Connor says quietly.

Gavin nods, but he lingers there for a moment, his head resting against Connor’s shoulder for a moment, an arm wrapping around his waist and hugging him tight before letting him go, disappearing back to his desk in a quick movement like he’s afraid of this or maybe just afraid of being seen like this together.

Connor glances to Tina, who has a teasing smile on her face, already leaning across her desk and saying whatever remark she has prepared about the two of them. He turns away before he catches Gavin’s reply, pouring himself back into the cases on his desk. If he looks too long, if he sees the quirk of Gavin’s lips form into a smile again or sees the way his face shifts, he will never be able to pull himself away again.

  
  


**APRIL 14, 2040**

It’s a strange image. Connor doesn’t quite understand what’s happening at first. He’s following a girl through the streets of the city, then into an old abandoned club, the bright purple-pink neon long since removed from the front. There’s dirt and dust and an almost fog coating the area. He follows her further and further until she stops suddenly, turning around to face him.

He knew who it was before she looked at him. It didn’t take her face to understand who she was. The bright blue hair? Who else could it be?

And he watches as she brings her hands up, touching the hair resting easily around her shoulders, brushing it out of her face. When her hands pull away, there is blood streaming down her nose, the fake skin on her body shifting in and out of existence until finally, he realizes something else is happening. His attention is drawn away from her face and to her hair, which seems to be growing longer and longer. Or maybe it’s falling out. It looks like it’s melting.

He stumbles backwards.

No. It’s not melting. It’s dripping. It isn’t hair at all. The colors have subtly shifted more and more until they’re the very similar shade of Thirium, falling down her body like a waterfall. Coating the soft white dress she’s wearing. Staining it as though someone’s just dyeing it another color.

It’s unsettling. Wrong.

It shouldn’t even be terrifying. It isn’t, really, until she falls to her knees and her mouth falls open and her lips are moving fast, pleading him, begging him, asking him to understand.

Connor doesn’t know what he’s meant to understand. He just turns and runs and when his back is to her, he feels a sharp pain in his spine, knocking him to the ground and he’s gasping for air like he needs it, like it’s a requirement to be alive.

The gun clatters beside his face and he looks at it, staring at as he lays there, willing it to disappear.

And when it finally does, it’s replaced with the shape of an alarm clock. Red numbers telling him it’s just after midnight. Connor stays there for a long moment before he dares to move, wondering if he even can. The pain in his back hasn’t gone away. It’s still there, lodged like the bullet was real.

It’s amusing to him to describe his movements as robotic, but they are. Carefully and awkwardly sitting up, his limbs stiff. Broken or maybe just too tense and too painful to move properly. Connor’s feet hit the floor, taking slow steps across the dark towards the door and to Hank’s room. When he opens it, he finds the bed empty and unmade, like it always is. Connor doesn’t come in here when Hank isn’t home, except to hang the shirts from the laundry in neat little rows across the rod in the closet.

He forgot that Hank wasn’t here. He forgot that he was staying extraordinarily late to finish up paperwork. Probably even fell asleep at his desk again or maybe in his car. He isn’t here and the house feels empty and suffocatingly dark.

Connor finds his phone, needing the physical thing in his hand to make the call despite the fact he could with all of the programming and mechanics built into his body. He needs to hold it, to feel the weight of the plastic in his hand, against his head. He needs to hear Gavin’s voice come from it and to his ear and not like it’s living in his head like a daydream or a nightmare or a hallucination.

“Yeah?” it comes out groggy and tired, half lost in sleep. Not exactly a normal way people answer their phones, Connor thinks.

“Did I wake you?”

There’s a long pause, a soft sigh, “Yes.”

“Can you come over?”

“Everything okay?” Gavin asks, his voice suddenly sounding alert, awake, ready to do whatever the world demands of him.

He debates answering for a moment. Admitting it over the phone or lying. Connor thinks he could probably say that everything is fine, that actually, Gavin doesn’t need to come over. That he’s changed his mind. That he’s solved the problem by himself.

But he can’t bring himself to lie right now and he tries to answer without his voice breaking and he fails, “No. I need you.”

“Okay. I’ll be there. Twenty minutes tops, okay?”

“Don’t speed,” Connor whispers quietly, somehow needing to convey again that he needs Gavin here, safely. “Be careful.”

“It’s the middle of the night, everything’ll be fine. Twenty minutes.”

He wants to ask Gavin to stay on the phone with him, and it occurs to him that maybe just talking for a few hours would have been enough to keep the fear at bay. It would’ve been enough to ease the tension from his body and leave him a person again. It might’ve even lasted long enough that Hank would’ve arrived home and he could’ve found safety and comfort laying in the bed beside him rather than suffering alone.

But he does need Gavin here, now. Connor needs him physically beside him, holding onto him, telling him everything is going to be okay. He doesn’t want the silence, but he hangs up anyway, waiting for Gavin to arrive, not wanting the distraction of a phone call to endanger him anymore than driving half-asleep in Detroit after midnight on a Saturday already does.

  
  


**APRIL 14, 2040**

The first time he hears a knock on the door, his initial thought it that it’s someone here to kill him. The second time, Connor realizes how stupid he’s being, but he can’t bring himself to move towards the door to open it until they knock a third time. It isn’t until he has his hand on the lock, turning it and opening the door, that he remembers he invited Gavin over. And like a flood, the need to see him surfaces again and he can’t stop himself from stumbling forward and falling against Gavin’s body, holding onto him as tight as he can manage.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “You didn’t have to come.”

“You asked me to.”  _ But he didn’t have to agree.  _ “You said you needed me.”

“I do.”

  
  


**APRIL 14, 2040**

Gavin doesn’t really ask what’s wrong. He does, once, and Connor shrugs him off and it isn’t asked again. He can’t decide if he wants to tell Gavin about his bad dreams, even if he thinks that Gavin might’ve guessed from the lights left on in the hallway and the way Connor curls up against him, unable to fall back asleep again, that it was from a nightmare. He doesn’t know if he can tell Gavin the details, he doesn’t know how much he can tell him at all.

Connor trusts him. He trusts that Gavin wouldn’t hate him or run in the opposite direction, but he is terrified of shattering whatever image Gavin has of him. And telling him about what he’s done? Telling him about how it haunts him, about how it ruins every bit of happiness he starts to possess? It’s terrifying.

And, he thinks, the second he starts to speak about one thing, it will lead into a hundred others and he will be spilling his guts about everything bad in his head. He doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want Gavin to know he has problems with his memory, that he forgets words, that he struggles to remain entirely in the present. Everything is slipping past him and he can’t hold on and he’s afraid if he tells someone about it—

He doesn’t know. Like it might make it worse. It doesn’t make sense, but it feels like once he openly admits it, there will be no end in sight. If Connor keeps it hidden, if he keeps it a secret, it’s like it will heal on its own again. He hopes it can. He’s terrified of whatever happens if it doesn’t. Terrified he won’t get nights like these, happier ones, where Gavin is holding onto him and the blanket is drawn around his shoulders and there are soft kisses pressed against the top of his head.

Connor doesn’t fall back asleep, but Gavin does, and there is a comfort in the rise and fall of his chest, in the beat of his heart. He’s going to miss this in the morning, when the light of day makes everything come to an end again.

  
  


[ID: A series of photographs during the process of bread being made.

A before and after of it rising, one of Gavin kneading it against a wooden cutting board,

another of it baking in the oven, and a last one of Connor cutting off careful slices.]

**LT.SUMO** — nobody is eating raw dough on my watch.

posted  **APRIL 14, 2040 **

——————————

The morning doesn’t go as expected. Connor leaves Gavin behind the bed, only to be followed into the kitchen a few seconds later, leaning against the counter and watching him carefully as Connor makes him a cup of coffee, pushing it across the counter toward him. They talk very little, quiet words passed back and forth. When Hank wakes up, his comments on Gavin staying the night are minimal, mostly targeted towards the unruly state of his hair, the rumpled and wrinkled pajamas with the plaid print. Connor expected more, maybe. Or something different. Maybe something crueler. He even expected worse from Gavin, who responded but not with an insult sharpened to kill.

And it’s only then, standing in the kitchen as they wake up for the morning, that he realizes that Hank and Gavin are both trying. Trying to fix whatever happened between them. It will likely be ignored, stuffed under the rug and fixed with time to forget whatever happened, but they are putting their differences aside for now.

It’s nice. He likes it, standing here, an arm wrapped around Gavin’s waist, able to turn and press a kiss against the side of his head. His little family, all in one room.

Minus the cats. He thinks they’re necessary for a family with Gavin.

And Tina, too. And Chris. Even Ben and Fowler. Simon and Josh and Markus. North and Chloe. He doesn’t know how it got to be like this. Having so many people he cares about. He was so absolutely and devastatingly alone after he deviated and so much has changed in such a short time.

Connor tries not to cry about it, tries not to show whatever emotion is building up inside of him, and the three change their attention to baking bread. Flour and yeast and sugar. Carefully setting everything out on the counters. Connor was going to do this with Hank anyway—planning on it whenever they would have the time to make it.

He likes it being today, with Gavin here, too. Taking over the job of punching the dough and kneading it into shape. Flour on his hands and the surface of the table, tossing little handfuls at Connor when he isn’t looking.

Connor wonders when the last time there’s ever been this much laughter in Hank’s kitchen. When there was ever this much laughter between the two of them that was pure. At least it’s back now, even temporarily.

  
  


**APRIL 16, 2040**

He doesn’t hear the knocking at first. It’s so quiet he thought he imagined it until it came a fourth time. Gavin makes his way across the living room, the kitchen, to the door. He doesn’t bother to see who it is, he answers either way.

And it’s as though every little bit of oxygen in the world dies and what’s left in his body exhales in a shuddering gasp.

“Tina?”

“Can I stay here tonight?” she asks, and her words come out just as shaky as his did.

“What happened to you?”

She shakes her head, tears in her eyes, fresh tracks coming down her cheeks. She’s reaching a hand up, like she’s trying to hide her face, all of the bruises on it. Purple and red and cuts that are bleeding, dirt smudged on her cheeks. But her hands do little to hide it all. Her fingernails are broken, some of them bleeding, scratches on her hands, too. So much blood and so many bruises. Her clothes are torn, her hair left in disarray.

“Please don’t make me tell you,” she whispers.

He nods, slowly, unsure, and she stumbles inside, collapsing against his weight like she can’t get much farther and he holds onto her tight, listening as her cries shift from silent to loud. Wails like she can’t hold them in. He’s seen her upset, he’s even seen her hospitalized after a rare case has gone bad.

Gavin has never seen her like this before. So broken, so lost, so completely crushed into nothing.

  
  


[ID: People standing around in the rain, some clustered in pairs. The main focus, though, is on a couple,

strangers to Connor and silhouetted by the street light in the late evening.

The shorter of the pair looking up towards the taller.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — [no caption made.]

unposted draft saved  **APRIL 16, 2040**

——————————

It’s late. Connor is hiding under his umbrella, safe away from the rain despite the fact he doesn’t really mind it all that much. He just isn’t fond of the idea of putting his jacket up to dry. It’s the last one he has of the few in his closet, the rest already sent off to be washed. His shoes squeak with the rain, though. It started downpouring a few minutes ago, flooding the streets. People run for cover, hiding from it as best as they can. Not all of them have umbrellas like he does. Not all of them saw the weather forecast or the sprinkles in the sky and thought it was worth it.

Maybe none of them thought they’d be out in the cold by the time the storm came in. It will probably be brief. Downpouring and soaking everything in the span of ten minutes before leaving again.

Connor slinks backwards against a building as his phone vibrates in his pocket and he pulls it to his ear, not really bothering to see who it is, but he gets a glimpse of the contact picture anyways. A picture that Tina took of Latte with sunglasses. He’d set it as Gavin’s picture after he’d seen it. Some attempt to have the space there filled with a picture but not quite capable of having it be of Gavin. He doesn’t know why. He reserves these things with a specific set of rules, always wanting the people in those pictures to be happy in some way. His contact picture for Tina is the same as her icon on Instagram–her and Cappuccino wearing matching sunglasses, both with the same blank-faced expression that he knows Tina likely lost and replaced with a laugh a second after she took it. And Hanks is one Connor took himself–a little bit blurry as Hank turned away from him but taken during the first time he thought he made Hank genuinely laugh out of something other than mocking or teasing.

He wants Gavin’s to be a picture where he smiles for the first time and doesn’t try to hide it. He doesn’t know why, but he feels like he needs it. So far, the closest Connor has gotten is moments after. Always taken aback by a smile like that. So rare that it surprises him to the point he only gets the parts just after, when it’s already disappearing.

“Connor?” He can hear somebody in the background making popcorn. The sounds of it getting louder and louder even though they become more distant, too. “I’m sorry–I can’t–”

“Gavin?”

“I know we had plans tonight,” he says, but he doesn’t talk any louder. Like he’s trying to be quiet. “I have to cancel. Something happened and I–”

“Is anyone hurt?”

Gavin’s quiet for a moment on the other side, the sound of a door shutting and drowning out the rest of the apartment. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to tell you. She said you could still come over, I just… I don’t know.”

“Tina?” he guesses, even though he isn’t aware that Gavin is friends with another woman at the DPD anyway–or in general. The only friendship that Connor has seen him try to keep is with Tina.

“Somebody hurt her,” Gavin whispers. “And I don’t know what to do.”

It’s funny–

This moment. It makes Connor want to laugh so he can break whatever’s been building in his chest. He wasn’t thinking about it before. The anxiety about what Gavin was leading up to. He didn’t jump to the worst conclusion possible and he didn’t think about what happened beyond just asking what Gavin meant. He didn’t think it would involve someone he knew. Gavin would’ve started with that, he thought.

But now he gets it.

And it feels like this strange crushing weight and he has to catch his phone before it slips out of his hand completely because he wants to drop it and run to Gavin’s place but he doesn’t even know if Tina is there. Gavin could be calling from her’s and he wonders how important it is to him, how detrimental it might be to go to the wrong one. How the urgency right now is to see both of them because he knows that even how he feels right now, Gavin will be feeling it a hundred times more.

“How bad is it?” he asks, and his voice sounds far away and like a child and he wonders if that’s even possible. If his voice can sound that fragile and broken.

“It’s bad, Con,” Gavin whispers. Connor can barely hear it. He wonders if it’s Gavin’s voice being quiet or his body breaking from something as simple as this news. “She said you could come over. I… I know you want to.”

Of course he does. Tina is his friend. He wants to be there for her. He wants to help.

“I don’t think she wants to be alone,” he continues. “I’m–I have to go. We’re going to watch a movie. There’s a spare key, I’ll text you where it’s at, okay?”

“Okay. Gavin–”

The phone hangs up on the other end and he pulls it away from his ear, looking at the picture as it tells him they’ve disconnected. That Gavin’s hung up on him. He doesn’t know what he was going to say. He doesn’t know if he could’ve, more accurately. He doesn’t think he can tell Gavin he loves him for the first time over the phone, and it was his automatic reaction. That he needed Gavin to know. That he needed him to tell Tina for him, too. That he loves both of them. That he’ll be there. He’s on the other side of the city, but it won’t take long and maybe those words could sustain them a little bit until he gets to the apartment building.

But instead he stares at the phone with the words dying on his lips and this urgency back in his body again to run. Not take a bus or a cab or anything, just to run, because he doesn’t know if he can stand still right now. The energy will build up inside of him and he won’t know what to do.

Connor finds the nearest train, boarding it and tapping his fingers and his feet and standing up and sitting down again, trying to figure out what he’s meant to do with this desire to run as fast as he can. Towards them but away from the news.

  
  


**APRIL 16, 2040**

He finds the key where Gavin texted him that it was hidden. It’s not a very good spot, but maybe Gavin doesn’t consider anything in his place is worth stealing–or even that his apartment complex would be much of a target. He’s probably correct on both fronts, besides for the gaming systems shut away safe and sound behind the doors of the entertainment system in the living room.

Connor makes his way in, closing and locking the door behind him as he walks through the darkened apartment. There is light streaming in through the windows from the street. A soft orange glow that gives him enough light to see that Latte is walking around, rubbing against the corner of the wall and peering back at him like he should give her attention.

He does, despite the sense of urgency to see Tina. He scoops the cat up into his arms, holding her close, maybe just needing the comfort himself. He’s terrified, really, of how bad Tina will look. What had happened. He doesn’t know the extent of it.

He opens the door to Gavin’s bedroom, a movie playing on the screen. A movie that Gavin had decided they watch together little more than a week ago. It’s nearing the end. The two of them are laying in the bed, Tina curled up on her side and the blanket drawn over her. She appears to be asleep. The rise and fall of her chest would indicate it but there’s an uncertainty. That maybe she’s still awake and only pretending so she won’t be interrogated about what happened.

“Come here,” Gavin whispers, and so Connor does.

He sets Latte down at the foot of the bed, shedding his jacket and his shoes and sitting on the edge of the mattress. Gavin’s moved back to laying beside Tina, moved closer to her body to make room for Connor here. The three of the crammed on the bed won’t be comfortable, no matter how tightly they pack together.

But Connor lays down anyway, laying closely behind Gavin where he drapes his arm over his waist. Similar to the way Tina is held by Gavin. He feels Gavin shift, a hand coming up uncomfortable where it’s pinned under his body just so he can hold Connor’s hand.

“Is she okay?” Connor asks quietly.

“She’s asleep.”

“Gavin,  _ is she okay?” _

“No broken bones.”

He thinks that’s the most answer he’ll get. No outright  _ of course not.  _

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Gavin is quiet for a long moment, like he’s contemplating how much he can say. It’s understandable. Just because Tina is his friend, too, doesn’t mean he is obligated to the information of what happened. It’s not as though Connor would tell Gavin something private that happened with Chloe or Hank. Connor wouldn’t even tell Gavin something about Tina if she asked him to keep it a secret.

“All she told me was that she didn’t want to go to the police.”

_ Oh. _

Connor leans forward and presses a kiss against the back of Gavin’s shoulder. He wants to ask more questions. The curiosity in him building up and up. There’s a thousand reasons why Tina could be attacked in the middle of the night. The simple fact she’s a woman. A woman walking alone. It could’ve been her personality. It could’ve been something people didn’t agree with. The world is different than it might’ve been forty years ago, but even then, he doubts the world would take too kindly to a girl like Tina in a relationship with an android like Chloe.

And Connor wants to tell Gavin a hundred things with that thought, too. That if anything happened to Gavin it would destroy him. That Gavin is nearly in the exact same situation as her. He wants to wake up Tina and ask her to describe the people who hurt her so he can find them himself. Connor would be good at making sure nobody ever found out who did it, too. Careful. Cautious.

He doesn’t. He’s quiet. He stays quiet, but he holds Gavin a little tighter trying to keep the words from coming out because he knows if he even starts to speak them, he will start to cry. Tina has been attacked. Brutalized. Hurt beyond what he knows, only using his imagination to figure out what might lie beneath the blanket drawn up over her. His friend was hurt terribly. Someone he loves was attacked for no reason.

And the only thing he can think of that would be worse than that is if she didn’t live to come back here.

“Connor?” Gavin whispers quietly, as though he’s afraid to wake him.

“I’m here,” he says, even though he means to say  _ I’m awake. _

Gavin doesn’t reply, and it strikes him that maybe Gavin was asking only to make sure he was still there, that maybe his slip up of the words were accurate to the situation. It makes him leave another kiss against his shoulder, to squeeze him for a moment, to make sure Gavin knows he’s still here and he wouldn’t leave.

He’s quiet for so long, that when he finally speaks again, Connor doesn’t know if it’s what he was originally going to say or not.

“I can’t keep my eyes open,” he whispers.

“Sleep,” Connor answers. “Get some rest.”

“I don’t want her–”

“I’ll stay awake. I promise.”

“Okay,” it’s barely audible. “Okay. Just…”

“I won’t leave.”

“Don’t let her be alone, either.”

He nods, “I promise.”

  
  


**APRIL 17, 2040**

He doesn’t fall asleep. Gavin does, but it takes a while for him to. For the breathing to deepen and the snores to start. It would be cute, if it was a different situation. He’s always liked the sound of Gavin’s snores. It’s stupid and silly but sometimes they make him laugh and he knows Gavin likely hates them more than anything. It seems everything Connor is fond about, Gavin seems to reject.

He stays awake on his own. The sun rises slowly and the cats come and go. Both of them sleeping by their feet at one point and then both of them gone. Latte strolls up and down the bed like she can’t decide where she wants to settle–probably because of the lack of room–and decides on curling up on the pillow next to Connor’s head, flipping him in the face with her tail a few times in her demand for more attention, but he doesn’t want to pull his arms away from Gavin. He doesn’t want to let him go. He’s terrified of it.

Tina wakes, eventually. It feels like an eventually solely because Connor’s been left alone to his thoughts for five hours. Counting seconds to kill them, putting equations through his head in an effort to guess how much time it might take to travel somewhere just to distract him. To keep his thoughts going instead of slipping into dreams like it wants to.

He watches her sit up gingerly. So slowly like she’s an old woman with brittle bones. She sits there for a moment, in the dim light of the morning, legs drawing up to her chest for a moment before falling away again when she winces at the pain of it.

And it’s the first time he’s really seen the extent of Tina’s wounds. Bruises across her face, staining the skin of her cheeks and eyes and neck, disappearing beneath the fabric of one of Gavin’s hoodies that Connor likes to borrow. Tina looks over to him and her demeanor changes. The silence and numbness breaking as her face scrunches up and her hands come up to hide it in balled fists like it might help.

“Tina–” he starts to move to sit up and she shakes her head violently.

“Don’t. You’ll wake him if you move,” she says quietly.

He doesn’t bother to mention that she did, that she had carefully moved his arm from where it was around her torso like it was the best he could do to hug her and keep her safe without hurting her. Connor doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what happened between the time he got the phone call and when he got here. Tina was already asleep.

“I don’t think he’ll care if I wake him up.”

“Well, I do,” Tina whispers. “I–I’m going to go. Make breakfast. Stay here. With him.”

She speaks in fragmented sentences, her words and voice coming out like broken syllables as though it’s too hard for her to speak normally. Like how people thought androids and robots would speak before something like Chloe and Connor and the others came to exist and were so human they were nearly indistinguishable.

“He doesn’t want you to be alone.”

“I know.”

“Tina–”

“I’ll be fine, Connor, I promise. I’ll take the cats. They’ll keep me safe.”

_ Safe.  _ Not  _ company.  _ They won’t protect her from the loneliness but they’ll protect her from entirely breaking apart like she probably wants to. Connor can see it in the way she holds herself. Moments from falling apart entirely. He’s never seen her like this before. He has only known her happy and cheerful and now she has been taken apart and she wasn’t even put back together wrong, she was simply not put back together at all. Pieces stolen away or lost in the process.

She is still Tina but she is Tina in a way he had tried to avoid making her before. Making sure he never told her the terrible things he felt or the things he did to keep her safe from more trauma.

“I’ll call for you if I need you.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes. You should sleep, too. Get at least an hour.”

“Do you want me to wake him?”

“No,” she says. “Not at all. If you do, I’ll run away and you’ll never see me again, except on the big screens when I become a famous movie star.”

He tries to smile to match her joke, but even her own smile is lost and barely there. Traces where it won’t come back.

“Okay,” he says, knowing he is breaking the promise he made to Gavin. “Just don’t leave the apartment, okay?”

“Okay,” Tina whispers. “Promise.”

So many promises made in the last six hours.

Tina leaves him and Gavin in the room, the door left open behind her as she walks away, the cats trailing behind her. Following her as though she’s the human they’d rather spend their days with than Gavin. It’s amusing, almost, how much they prefer her to him.

Connor turns back to Gavin, closes his eyes and hides his face against Gavin’s back. Terrified all over again that when he opens them he’ll be hugging a pillow instead. He doesn’t want to sleep, because he doesn’t want to have a dream about something happening to Gavin or even happening to Tina or anyone else. He doesn’t think he can handle a nightmare right now.

So instead, he lays there with his eyes closed and listens to the sounds of the city come to life. Cars and people and footsteps above him. Dogs barking as they’re taken out on morning walks. Sirens off in the distance trying to aid in some terrible event. If Connor listens very, very closely, he thinks he can hear Tina crying, and as much as he tries to shut it out, he thinks it only gets louder.

  
  


**APRIL 17, 2040**

Gavin wakes to the sounds of pans clattering against each other, turning against Connor’s chest and blinking his eyes up at him, then feeling the empty spot beside him. For a moment, he thinks he imagined the night before, and then he thinks he’s imagined the sounds from the kitchen. But none of that is true. It all has the pressing weight of reality.

“You left her alone,” Gavin whispers, too tired to really feel as angry as he should. Not about the fact Tina was alone, but the fact Connor lied, broke the promise he made to keep her company. “I told you—”

“She wanted to be by herself.”

“She—”

“Gavin,” Connor says, defusing the disagreement before it can go any further. “Sometimes we need to be alone when we’re upset. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

Gavin shakes his head, dismissing the idea of it, despite knowing Connor is right. That if it happened to him, there is a limit to how much he is willing to allow himself to cry in front of others.

“What is she doing?”

“She asked me if you’d want pancakes and I didn’t know what to tell her, so I said yes.”

“She asked you?”

Connor smiles a little, nodding. It isn’t all that funny, though, it’s almost scary. The idea of Tina asking Connor, an android, about whether or not her best friend would want pancakes. She cooks. She loves to cook. She even surrounds herself sometimes with baked goods just to busy her hands and keep her thoughts on exact measurements and arrangement of ingredients over anything else.

Gavin sits up from the bed, not really thinking about how any other time he might kill to stay a little longer in Connor’s arms, and he leaves the room quickly, abandoning Connor in the bed.

“Tina—”

“Good morning,” she says, a fake cheery tone. Laced so cloyingly sweet it makes him recoil. “I’m making breakfast.”

“Did you call Chloe?”

She’s silent on the subject, “Do you want chocolate chips? Banana? I don’t think you have chocolate chips. You should. It’s good to keep them on hand. You never know when you want chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night and then you’d have to run to the store and whenever that happens to me, personally, I get back and then realize I don’t actually have the energy to bake anymore and then I fall straight asleep annoyed and unhappy because really, if I wanted cookies that badly, I could’ve just bought premade instead of the chips and—”

“Tina.”

“I didn’t call her.”

“Why?”

She’s quiet, not looking at him. Gavin is almost grateful for it, as terrible as it sounds. Every time he saw a glimpse of her face before, it made him feel sick. Wrong in a way like he was flooded with too much anger than he knew what to do with and the helpless feeling of being too useless to do anything but sit by her side. When he’d given her the hoodie the night before after she showered, it had been like an armor she put on. Covering up the bruises and cuts and scrapes that led their way down past her neck, the ones that decorated her arms, showing that she survived but also how much she lost, too.

Gavin didn’t ask what happened, not again. She had only provided him with the short answer that she was jumped by a few men on her way home. He didn’t want to ask about the ripped clothes. He was terrified of the answer he’d get in return.

“You should call her.”

“It’s too early.”

“Tina…”

And then she turns to look at him, the bruises somehow worse than he remembered, and he’d lent himself to an imagination that often twisted pain into an exaggeration. But this is far worse than Gavin remembered from the night before. Her swollen lip cut along the side of the bottom. The long gash on her forehead that he had carefully helped her patch up with butterfly bandages. The bruises overtaking more than half her face, making her eyes look sunken in and tired.

And she moves slowly, letting him know that they are probably just as bad everywhere else.

“If Connor was human,” she says slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Would you want to see him like this?”

“I’d want to be there for him.”

She shakes her head, maybe knowing he’s right. “Fine. Would you want him to see  _ you?” _

No.

The answer comes so fast that he has to bite his tongue from saying it out loud. But she’s right. He would never want Connor to see him like this. One of the worst things about waking up after his suicide attempt was Tina seeing him after, weak and pitiful and stupid. A failure.

“At least message her—”

“I will,” she says, turning back to the task at hand, slamming something down against the counter. “Bananas? Or plain?”

He hates this. He hates seeing her like this. Pretending everything is okay. Turning her pain into anger. It reminds him too much of himself.

“Plain,” he says quietly, making his way towards the counter. “If that’s okay.”

She nods and gets back to work, pushing aside canisters of flour and sugar and cartons of eggs. Making her way around the kitchen like it’s the only thing she knows how to do right now. And Gavin lets her. Each second she spends here, she gets a little closer to something recognizable.

  
  


**APRIL 19, 2040**

Gavin covers for her, just like she covered for him. Does his best to keep people from asking question, does his best to take her work and do it for her.

Tina hasn’t really talked to him. He’s texted her with one word answers in response. Constantly asking her if she’s okay, how she is. He’s called her but she didn’t pick up. He doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if this is how she felt two years ago, when he shut down and would barely say a word to her.

It’s not fair. Tina doesn’t deserve this. Nobody does. 

He feels useless and stupid and he doesn’t think it matters what he says to her, it won’t comfort her. He just wants to hurt them. Whoever it was that hurt her. He wants to hunt them down and find them and beat them until they can barely move or breathe like she was.

_ It’s not fair. _

  
  


**APRIL 22, 2040**

Tina’s covered the bruises on her face, but her hand still comes to her abdomen when she reaches for something. Pressing against her stomach like it will stop the pain. Gavin remembers doing the same thing when he was younger. Holding onto his sides or his stomach or his ribs and trying to keep himself from completely falling apart.

Gavin tries to talk to her about it, but she won’t say a word to him. She jokes and she laughs but it isn’t with the same energy before. She looks so strange, acting so out of place. It makes him worry she’ll never be okay again.

She’s covered up the bruises, yes, even matched the foundation and the makeup rather well to her skin tone, but it’s so off. It’s so wrong. She doesn’t wear makeup. She never has. Not even the littlest bit, not in any of her photos and not at the fundraiser. Never. It’s just another reminder that underneath it all she isn’t okay and there’s nothing he can do to help her.

  
  


**APRIL 23, 2040**

Gavin catches Connor just before he’s leaving work. Pulling him off to the side of a hallway, wanting to pull him even further. Hide away in the closet so there’s little hope of being seen. He thinks, maybe, it’s his expression that keeps Connor from laughing like he usually does in the few times before that they’ve tried to be alone in the station. He thinks it’s the only thing keeping Connor from kissing him right now, because he’s standing so close, holding onto Gavin like he’s terrified of what he’s going to say.

“I never properly apologized to you,” he says quietly. “For hurting you.”

“It’s—”

“No. Wait. Let me say it,” Gavin whispers, his voice shaking. It’s all he can do not to fall apart. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I punched you. I’m sorry that I killed you. I’m sorry I threatened you. I’m sorry I hated you so much. You didn’t deserve it. Nobody does but—I’m… I’m just really sorry, Connor. Even if it didn’t hurt, I’m sorry.”

Connor nods, slowly, “Okay.”

Okay.

_ Okay. _

Connor pulls him a little closer, a kiss left against his forehead, “I forgive you.”

He wants to tell him he loves him, but he bites back the words. They feel wrong in this moment, like he shouldn’t say them.

Another time. Another time not tainted by their history.

  
  


[ID: Tina kneeling beside Chloe at the edge of the garden,

her sleeves drawn up and her hands carefully patting down dirt around a seed.]

**JUSTJOSHIN** — From the ground up again.

posted  **APRIL 25, 2040 **

**connor_rk800 ** ✿✿✿✿✿

**chlofleur ** ꒰˘̩̩̩⌣˘̩̩̩๑꒱♡

——————————

There is one extra person today. Chloe arrives with Tina shortly before Simon and Josh. It’s even stranger seeing her today than it was seeing her the night it happened. She’s standing in the middle of the front yard, head tipped up and looking out towards the city in the distance, with all of it’s tall buildings and life. It’s quieter out here, just barely. Tina is quieter too. Connor knows every time he sees her he thinks she looks different than he’s ever seen her before, but it seems to only prove itself again and again. Never quite sinking in that this is what’s happened. That she has lost the humor, she’s lost the laughter. Tina is quiet and secluded and he keeps his eyes on her the entire time Chloe says hello and asks if it’s okay that she’s here.

Of course it is. It’s Tina. She is one of the people that helped Connor settle back into the DPD. Someone that very subtly accepted his presence there without question. If he was human, she might’ve brought him coffee or treats. Their friendship might’ve started sooner than it had.

When Chloe turns back and calls her name, Connor half-expects Tina to smile and race over to them, but instead she only gives them a glance with the same blank expression she had before and walks slowly towards the building, pulling the cardigan around her tight. Connor doesn’t think she really wants to be here. She’d probably rather be home alone or at least secluded away with Chloe and without anyone else, but she doesn’t protest. She only asks how she can help, her voice quiet and small and so, so far away.

  
  


[ID: Tina with small purple flowers taken from the edge of the fence walls braided into her hair.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — [no caption added.]

unposted draft saved  **APRIL 25, 2040 **

——————————

It strikes him as something not quite acceptable to post the moment he saves the picture to the back of his head. Maybe it’s Tina, maybe it’s Josh or Chloe or Simon. The whole picture seems like it is conveying something beyond words, something too private to put out there even for the small number of people he allows to see his profile. It feels, even, like all of them are intruding on each other somehow.

Simon found the flowers, although they knew about them before. But it was time to make a decision on what to do with them. If they should pull them from the earth and hope they don’t grow again. If they should be a little more aggressive with the treatment of the weeds trying to climb it’s way up the side of the fence. They aren’t hurting anyone, and they all decide to leave them be. But an hour later, Connor looks up to find Tina sitting by them, leaning against the fence while taking a break and plucking a few, twisting them in her fingers, looking at them in a way that he knows means she’s in deep thought.

Josh followed his gaze, too, eventually leaving his spot from the side of the house to her, dusting his hands off on his jeans and kneeling beside her, taking the flowers from her fingers and placing them carefully in her hair. The smile that came up on her face was a little soft, a little broken, but still more the Tina he used to know. He thinks Josh must’ve seen that, too, because he continued. Taking some of the flowers, not all of them, and placing them in her hair. Some of them staying, some of them carefully braided to stay put.

And Chloe, off to the side, just barely in the edge of the photo, had her head tilted to the side, the same sad smile on her face, too.

He’ll show the picture to Gavin and only Gavin, he decides. Maybe when they spend the night together again, he can pull it up on his phone in the dark and make sure it stays a secret there. Consumed by only them and the shadows.

  
  


[ID: The rain on the cement path in Hank’s backyard. It looks flooded,

like the backyard is slanted and all the water collects in one spot on the path an inch deep.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — ≧〔゜゜〕≦

posted  **APRIL 25, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** should’ve checked the weather

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed ( •̀ω•́ )

——————————

Nobody leaves, despite the rain. Despite them all knowing there’s nothing left for them to do. Connor sits on the couch, drawing his legs up, hiding underneath the blanket resting over the back, his phone in his hand. The conversation he’s having with Gavin is about as ridiculous as they ever get. Passing emojis back and forth without ever saying a word. And then, suddenly—

_ Tina is there, isn’t she? _

And there’s such a little reason to lie that he tells Gavin the truth. Of course she’s here. Chloe is here. He can hear the sound of them talking in the kitchen, the water in the sink has been running for ten minutes. If he listens too closely, he can hear Chloe telling her to stop. She’s been scrubbing at the dirt on her hands since they came inside. Getting every little bit of dirt out from underneath her fingernails.

_ She’s okay,  _ Connor tells him.  _ She’s doing better. _

He doesn’t really know if it’s the truth. He thinks it is. He hopes it is.

  
  


[ID: Chloe laying on the floor in Hank’s place, her head is turned to the side and looking off camera,

likely towards somebody else that’s speaking.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Rainy days.

posted  **APRIL 25, 2040 **

**tina_tot** invite me over to garden again sometime con. It was nice

|  **connor_rk800** @tina_tot Absolutely!! ❤️

——————————

Chloe and Tina leave, with Simon trailing behind them on their way to the store. He wasn’t paying as much attention to the conversation as he should have, drifting back and forth from them to the texts. They’re coming back, soon. Just getting the things that Hank doesn’t have to make chocolate chip cookies. It reminds him of Tina the morning after everything happened. Listening to her ramble on and on about how Gavin didn’t have any, and then he listened to a shorter, abridged version ten minutes ago.

They’re gone in an instant, climbing into a car together despite the rain. Josh yelling after them to be careful, to hurry up. There’s almost a strange sense of happiness that comes with this rainstorm that’s secluded them to the indoors. They’re staying, despite being unable to continue the work. Staying because they want to be here with Connor and Tina and the others.

Connor considers calling Gavin. He wants to hear his voice, even if only for a few moments, but he tucks his phone away and helps Josh find a plastic container full of cards from eight different decks. Plain black ones, ones with cartoon characters, ones with dogs and another with cats. An assortment of so many, all clustered together, that the two spend their time sorting them out into usable decks.

Josh takes the ones with vibrant pictures on them, Connor giving himself the two different shades of red, one faded from old age and the sun, another more brand-new. He’s never seen Hank play solitaire or canasta or any type of card game. Maybe this is why. No patience to properly sort the decks so clustered together here, half of them missing, he realizes, when the deck of dark blues don’t add up to the right number. Missing a King and a Queen.

“Chloe told me you’re dating Tina’s friend.”

Connor glances up at him. It’s weird, hearing it phrased like that. It’s really the first time he’s heard someone refer to them even dating. The people at work don’t really know, or if they do, they don’t comment. Nobody’s really clarified the subject, not even him and Gavin.

“Gavin,” he says quietly. “His name is Gavin.”

“And he’s your boyfriend?”

He bites his lip, placing an eight card in the pile with the others with soft pink numbers. “I don’t really know, I guess. We haven’t…”

“Named things?”

Connor nods. It’s not exactly the term he wanted to use to describe it, but he can’t remember what he wanted to say, and suddenly he feels terrified of this thing that Josh has brought to his attention. That they aren’t exclusive. That they’ve gone on a few dates and they talk and they kiss and they laugh and they hold hands, but it doesn’t really mean anything, does it?

“I love him,” Connor says suddenly, the words tumbling out of his mouth like he needs to say them.

He always feels the need to say them, they just always feels so stuffed down under something else. Moments never quite right or feeling like it’s too early in whatever this is that they haven’t named yet. It doesn’t matter how long Connor’s known him. It doesn’t matter that he knows he’s loved Gavin for a while. It’s their relationship. It’s saying it to him and changing the meaning of the words to be something that will matter in a different way than they had before.

“Have you told him?” Josh asks, and Connor pauses in his movements, watching him organize the cards. Cats all in one pile. Dogs in the one beside it. A deck of cards with cartoon fish that look like it was made for a child, even smaller in size, like it’s been shrunk down from what the others are.

“Not yet,” he says quietly. “I don’t know how.”

Josh smiles a little, and it helps. It eases whatever tension that’s been building on the back of his neck, telling him to shrink down and be quiet and stop this. “I don’t want to tell you what to do, Connor.”

“Of course not.”

“But I think you should tell him.”

“Yeah?” Connor smiles a little, thinking about how easy it would be to call Gavin now and let him know, but he doesn’t want to tell him over the phone. He wants to be able to hold him. He wants to be able to kiss him. Suddenly the distance between them today, even if they’re in the same city, even if they saw each other yesterday and will see each other tomorrow, feels like a chasm he can’t cross. Like he does need to do it right this second, now that Josh has told him he should. Confirming the feeling he’s felt but never acted upon.

“Between you and me,” Josh says, leaning forward, lowering his voice. “And don’t tell anyone this but… I see people. I mean, Simon, for instance. He doesn’t tell anyone how he feels. He keeps it all inside. It’s not just the fact he’s—”

“He’s what?”

Josh smiles a little, “You know he’s in love with Markus, don’t you?”

No. He doesn’t. He didn’t even have a clue. Simon is rarely at Markus’ place when Connor is there. If anyone is, it’s North. And Markus never mentioned it, but Connor can see it now, think of how Markus’ mouth would curve up into a small smile with Simon’s name was mentioned or the way Simon hides his face the second anyone comments on whether or not Markus will be with them the next time they come gardening.

It’s not even just that. It’s the comments, as trivial as it sounds, on the pictures he’s seen. This playful back and forth between them, even ones Connor had posted of either one, they’d still respond to them like they were seeing them in real life. It’s how he feels when he sees Gavin’s pictures. Not even just Gavin’s pictures of himself, which are such a rarity Connor struggles to remember when he saw one last. They make him happy. They make this feeling in his chest grow and he doesn’t ever know what to call it because happiness feels so redundant and like it doesn’t quite encapsulate it entirely. The word isn’t big enough to contain that feeling.

“And Markus likes him,” he says, reducing it down to the only word he’s comfortable with. He doesn’t know either of them like Josh does. He can’t speculate on whether or not it’s love, but it’s a crush, at the very least. It’s romantic. It’s a want and a desire they’re hiding from each other out of the same fear that Connor had. “Idiots.”

“Yeah,” Josh laughs. “They are.”

“You should arrange a blind date for them,” Connor says, continuing his organization of the cards. “Make them not realize they’re meeting up with each other until the last second.”

“I have. They’re just—they’re idiots. Like you said. It’s not my point, though, Connor. My point is there isn’t that much time in the world, even as androids. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t hide and conceal how you really feel.”

He nods, just barely, but he also knows it isn’t that easy. It’s not that easy to admit love for another person. The stakes are too high. If he says it too early, if Gavin doesn’t say it back, it’ll hurt. Even if he thinks it would be okay that Gavin didn’t say it back, it would still hurt hearing the empty silence in response. He doesn’t know if he’s ready for that or not. He doesn’t know if he could handle it.

“Connor?”

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I spaced out.”

“No, I just—” Josh sighs. “I’m not telling you what to do, and you shouldn’t take my opinion as fact. I’ve just seen so many people pretend they don’t feel a certain way and it ruins them. You don’t have to tell him now. You don’t have to tell him in a week. I just think you should tell him.”

He nods, “I will.”

  
  


[ID: An arrangement of cookies on a plate, haphazard and imperfect.]

**CHLOFLEUR** — I’ve never baked before (๑ˊ▵ॢˋ̥๑)

posted  **APRIL 25, 2040 **

**tina_tot** they turned out great ❤️

|  **chlofleur** @tina_tot ╰(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯

**connor_rk800 ** We should bake again together sometime!

|  **chlofleur** @connor_rk800 Yes!! Please!!

——————————

When the group returns from the store, the kitchen is thrown into disarray quickly. Tina working like a supervisor, asking for measuring cups and teaspoons and mixing bowls. Simon tries to turn the dough into shapes, forming a bunny that when cooked becomes a strange looking blob that he half cries and half laughs over, especially after Tina makes jokes about it that teeter on the edge of too vulgar. Josh acts like a mother, chastizing Tina for stealing bits of the raw dough which she only ever returns with a smile and a laugh and a  _ fuck you  _ that makes Connor wonder what she would say if it was Gavin telling her not to do it.

Chloe and her both linger in the kitchen when the cookies go into the oven, the other three retreating to the living room to set up some type of game, as asked by Tina. Telling them that when she was younger, whenever it rained her father would pull her and her siblings from their rooms, sit them down and set up Clue or Monopoly, but her favorite was always Mouse Trap. She never played it properly, she just had fun messing with the toys, like Operation. It sounded so distant and strange to hear memories of her childhood—a fact that only reminded Connor that he doesn’t know her as deeply as he thinks he does.

He avoids taking any more pictures of Tina than he has today. It feels weird. He doesn’t know why, it just feels like he shouldn’t. But he spies her in the kitchen, leaning against a countertop, helping Chloe clean up the dishes and the mess of flour and sugar left behind. Maybe it’s the softness of her actions, reaching out to Chloe, brushing a strand of hair from her face, holding it gently before leaning in to kiss her, but it makes him angry.

Not at them, but at the people who hurt her. It refreshes the wound all over again. Tearing away who she was. Connor doesn’t know how to act in this situation. He didn’t know how to act with Hank, either. When he was recovering from drinking, when he would have moments of pure resentment towards Connor for dumping out the bottles of liquor in the sink. He doesn’t know how to help people, because it always feels like prying. Sometimes, Connor will awkwardly shove in the question during breakfast of how Hank’s therapy is working for him, and he will feel strange about it the rest of the day, wondering if he overstepped a boundary.

It’s different now. Connor is different. He feels wrong and separated from who he was when he was a machine, when he had very easily and almost bitterly told Hank he needed help, more than once. He didn’t have the tact for the situation then and he’d handled it bluntly, and now he still doesn’t have it, but it’s only worse.

Connor is terrified of being who he was then. He’s terrified of the violence he endured and the brutal and ruthless nature of his own actions. He doesn’t like being this angry, he doesn’t like thinking about how easy it would be to hurt those people, even kill them, dispose of their bodies so no one ever sees them again. He doesn’t like it but the image doesn’t leave his head. Red blood on concrete, chopped up limbs thrown into the ocean. Fingerprints filed off, teeth removed. Tattoos searched for and burned off, anything. He knows how to do this and there is an almost, sickening and disgusting, sense of gratitude that he doesn’t know who did it.

Connor doesn’t think he could live with himself if he did, even if he thinks they deserve it. 

  
  


**APRIL 28, 2040**

Connor thinks about what Josh said. About not waiting. About not hiding his feelings. And he thinks he’s right. There always feels like there isn’t enough time in the world with Gavin, but he doesn’t entirely know if that means he should say it. It still feels so soon. They still feel so new and awkward and not quite fitting together properly.

But he still goes to Gavin’s apartment, taking Hank’s car and arriving a short while later. His clothes get soaked fast, the rain never quite letting up this month. Overtaking everything and anything. Connor isn’t cold, though. He knows his skin’s temperature is low, he knows that his body is reacting to it like a human would—shivering and drawing the jacket around his body a little tighter. His teeth are chattering like it’s the middle of the winter, but it doesn’t really bother him.

He has to tell Gavin.

Except, when the door opens, when his mouth starts to form the words, they die. Not because he doesn’t want to say them, not because he can’t, not even because he forgets what the words actually are.

He sees Gavin standing there, tired and in his pajamas, shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders, a small smile on his face forming when he sees Connor and it’s like falling in love all over again, but this time in fast-forward. Before he hadn’t really noticed the little things adding up more and more. Connor knew it was happening, but it didn’t really feel like anything was really changing until the end. But now he feels it. The feeling of slipping and falling further and further.

He wants to say it, but he sees Gavin and the feeling in his stomach shifts a little.

He’s scared.

Terrified.

He hasn’t felt this scared in so long it feels strange and out of place, but it’s something he’s been thinking about a little, too.

How close they are so soon. How fast they’re moving. It doesn’t seem like it, when he only thinks about their few dates, when he thinks about their stolen kisses and their laughs, but it does when he thinks about how much it hurt when Gavin refused to talk to him after the fundraiser. It scares him when he thinks about how much he missed Gavin when he was gone on a one-day trip away from Detroit with Tina or even the days he spends home alone or gardening with the others, not seeing him but thinking about him constantly. And worries that this isn’t love but obsession, that this attachment to Gavin isn’t what Connor thought it was. He worries and fears that it’ll fade just as quickly as it started.

Connor wants to say it, partially because he believes to to be true and partially because he doesn’t want to allow his thoughts to keep spiralling like this. He thinks saying it out loud might get rid of those fears and worries but then he worries that maybe that’s just a trick and just another way he’s fooling himself and suddenly—

Suddenly, Connor is terrified about all the moments he has thought about a possible future with the two of them. Marriage and a house and kids and pets running around. A life beyond this. It’s too soon to be thinking about, and it’s the scariest thing he can imagine.

He thinks about when they kissed after the movie night, when they both wanted to go further, when they both broke apart. He doesn’t know why Gavin pushed him away, but Connor knows why  _ he  _ did. Everything feels too fast for such a slow build to what they are.

“Connor?”

He depends on Gavin. He needs him. He wants him. He’s in love with him, he thinks. He’s never been in love before. He’s seen it in movies and books but then media always walks a fine line between proper love and obsession. He doesn’t know where he’s standing suddenly.

“Did you have another nightmare?”

Connor shakes his head slowly, trying to find words to say now that he’s here. Because down at its core, it’s just because he wanted to see him. He saw him at work today and he’d see him at work tomorrow but he wanted to see him now, in the moments he was drifting off to sleep and thought about what Josh had said to him and how immediate he felt the urge to confess everything as if Gavin didn’t know he cared about him at all.

“Do you want to come in?” Gavin looks worried now, the smile gone.

And that question in and of itself is a trap. The worry that if he agrees they’ll both do something that’s still too fast for their relationship to handle. He doesn’t want to lose him. He thinks about Tina hurt and bruised and broken and he imagines how he might feel if that happened to Gavin and it breaks him.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m scared,” Connor whispers, because it’s all he can manage now. The truth, stripped of the details but presented still.

“Come here.”

“I can’t stay,” Connor says quietly, not budging. “I have Hank’s car. I need to take it back to him.”

“Okay. You don’t have to. Just come here.”

He nods, too fast this time, knowing that the quick movement of stepping inside the apartment and holding onto Gavin this tightly is another detail in a long list of tiny actions that make him worry about his attachment to Gavin. It’s normal to feel this much for a person, right? It’s normal to feel worried that something might happen to them, right? Is it normal, though, to feel like he relies on Gavin’s presence in his life in a way that he hadn’t considered before?

“What’s wrong?” Gavin asks, his voice low, arms wrapped around his waist. “What happened?”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says, scared to voice the words out loud. Unsure of how much to tell him. Always unsure of how much to say. “I keep—I keep thinking—”

“About Tina?” Gavin asks, supplying the end of his sentence when Connor can’t get the words out. They’re choked up on sobs that he doesn’t want to come but they do. Shaking his body with tears running down his face and the inability to talk properly. Is that a malfunction, too? Like his memories?

“It h-hurts.”

Gavin nods against his shoulder, but he doesn’t say anything for a long time. No reassurance that he’ll never be hurt like Tina was. He understands it. He understands how that isn’t a promise someone can make. Gavin can’t promise Connor that nobody will ever jump him in the middle of the night. He can’t promise that an accident won’t occur where his apartment catches on fire or his motorcycle skids off the highway. He can’t, but he holds Connor a little tighter like a promise that he’ll be careful.

Connor is so worried about messing this all up, that he cries a little harder, scared about every action he’s taken so far in this relationship. Wondering how much he’s forgiven that he shouldn’t have and how much he’s done that shouldn’t be acceptable. He doesn’t know what a proper, healthy relationship is like. Connor doesn’t know if how he feels is bad or unhealthy. He just knows he’s happy when he’s around Gavin, he knows he needs him, he knows he loves him. He keeps going back and forth on that last part, but being held like this now, feeling Gavin turn his head to press kisses where he can against Connor’s face where it’s pressed into his shoulder, listening to the soft sounds of Gavin shushing him like a parent might shush a child—

Everything is so confusing in his head and he keeps coming back to Gavin and it’s terrifying and he has no other word for it. How absolutely terrifying all of this is. He keeps using the same word like any other synonym has disappeared from his head, and maybe it has.

“You’re freezing,” Gavin says quietly, after a long moment. “Do you want to borrow some clothes?”

“I can’t stay,” he repeats.

“I know.”

Connor pulls away from him, brushing tears from his eyes and wondering if he’s a bad person for shoving all this emotion onto one person. Worrying that it’s too much for him to bear in such a short time. But he follows Gavin to the bedroom anyway, watching him take clothes from his closet. Sweatpants and hoodies that feel soft and clean and dry and he didn’t realize how cold he was until now. It didn’t really settle in as a feeling that affected him until the moment he peeled off his jacket and hung it up.

When he’s done, Gavin pulls him into the bed, wrapping a blanket around him tightly, turning the tiny television he has in there on, an old cooking show playing. Background noise to help fill the silence. But Gavin still leans against him, curled up close, holding onto him tight.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says quietly. “But we can, if you want.”

Connor feels fresh tears roll down his cheeks. He thought he was done crying, but it’s apparent that he’s wrong. It’s happened before. It happens often. Feeling like he might be okay and then someone does a tiny act of kindness and it breaks him from how much he doesn’t feel he deserves it.

He could tell Gavin about that, too. How he isn’t someone that deserves something like this. But he doesn’t. He’s afraid to talk. Everything’s gone completely wrong and all Gavin has done is proven to be nice and generous when Connor thought for a brief time that it was something he was completely incapable of.

And now he wants to say it again. To turn to Gavin and tell him he loves him. That he’s sorry that he’s like this right now, that he’s sorry that it’s happened. He regrets coming here. He regrets telling Gavin about how upset he is, even if that wasn’t his intention.

“I can’t stay,” he says again, his voice aching. “It’s not… It’s not because of Hank.”

“Okay,” Gavin says quietly. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I do,” he says, pulling the blanket tighter. He wishes his arms were a little more free, because he wants to grab Gavin and hold onto him as tight as possible, too. “It’s—Do you—”

“Connor.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I can’t figure out the words.”

“Take your time.”

He nods, sniffling, willing the tears to stop again. They’re slower now, not quite coming so uncontrollably. They aren’t the things breaking up his speech. It’s his lack of knowing how to phrase it, his desire not to tell Gavin these things, scared that they’ll ruin everything. That he might not understand, because how could he? How could he, when Connor doesn’t even know what he’s saying?

“Everything is too fast,” he says. “It’s all just too fast.”

“What? Us?”

He nods, “The world, too.”

Gavin doesn’t say anything, but Connor’s words start to shift together, merging into something that isn’t concise but is the best way he can phrase it.

“I can’t tell the days apart, they all just blur into one thing. And it’s part of the reason I have the account, you know? Trying to find something special about every day to take note of so I don’t confuse it with another. But it’s difficult. It’s so much pressure and I don’t know why. It’s all just too much. It’s all just too fast. And then there’s you.”

“Me?”

“I’m scared,” he says, because it seems to be the only word he knows how to describe himself right now. “I’m scared about how I feel towards you.”

“Connor—”

“I care about you so much it hurts,” he says, and he regrets the word choice, even if it’s apt. The love he feels towards Gavin feels like it’s overflowing, suffocating him, taking up every space inside of his body until it’s bursting. Until it’s making every part of him feel like it’s too full and can’t handle the weight of it anymore. But it doesn’t hurt in a bad way, and for some reason he can’t say that part out loud. He can’t figure out how to make it make sense and the words are tossed away quickly, because there’s too much to say and not enough time. “I need you. I’ve never wanted anyone like this before and I don’t know what to do.”

“You have me,” Gavin replies. “I promise.”

But eventually Connor is going to lose him.

He wants to tell him he loves him, but he is biting his lip hard to keep himself from saying it out loud. It doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t want to tell him like this. He never wanted to tell him like this, when he’s upset. He wanted it to be something that felt happy and good and not like this moment, where he’s crying and freezing and  _ terrified. _

“Connor, we can go slower. If you want.”

He nods, but he isn’t even sure if it’s possible to go much slower than they are now. It isn’t as if they are constantly around each other outside of work. It isn’t as if they have a date every night. It isn’t as if they talk all night on the phone, even if sometimes their text conversations last a long time. It’s the feeling in his chest, when he sees him, when they’re apart from each other. It’s the constant fear that something bad is going to happen to Gavin. He doesn’t know how to change that.

“We can make some rules, if it works for you.”

He nods again, wanting to free his arms, wanting to kiss Gavin because he hasn’t really kissed him yet and he’s desperate to.

“Connor,” Gavin says quietly, leaning forward, kissing him as though he’s reading his mind. Letting it be one of the soft ones, like the one at the dance. Where it wasn’t putting the question of anything else other than a future between them on the table. “I care about you, too.”

He almost wants to joke and ask if Gavin needs him, but he can’t manage it. Everything hurts too much right now to make a joke, even to levy the tension.

Instead, they make rules together. Stupid ones, Connor thinks, impossible ones, even, but they are there, and he hopes they help.

  
  


**APRIL 29, 2040**

Gavin didn’t really need Connor to explain every little thing about what he felt. He didn’t even need Connor to elaborate on what he was saying. He understood it, because, to some degree, he felt it too. The way they snapped together. It was like they—mostly Gavin—was shoving them apart and then suddenly, when he allowed them to happen, he couldn’t pry them apart. It wasn’t like they were comfortable with each other right away. He knew that. He remembers the night Connor came over and it took so long for either of them to find a comfortable way to sit together. Or at work, when Connor would venture over to his desk and Gavin felt like an idiot reaching out to hold his hand across the space between them. But in contrast, he remembers all the times he pulled Connor to the side of the hallway to kiss him, to look up in those stupid brown eyes of his and think about how much he’s going to regret all this when he gets a little closer to his birthday and won’t be here a moment after.

They don’t have that now.

One of their rules is this:

No interaction at work. A separation between them that can help force space. Stopping the constant interaction that always leads to affection neither of them can handle because of how much it drowns each of them. Gavin went so long without someone treating him tenderly like this that it feels like an addiction.

Anytime they speak in the confines of the station walls, it has to be related to work.

Except, Gavin thinks, in the mornings, when Connor brings him a cup of coffee and says hello to him. He allows that, at least today, at least because it’s the start of all this. But he misses the kiss he used to get, the gentle one against his lips that a second one followed against his cheek before Connor would leave to do work.

Gavin misses more of it than he thought he would. Underestimating his will power, underestimating how many times he would glance up before and see Connor hunched over his desk or would interject in a conversation he’d have with Tina. He misses seeing Connor make an excuse to go to the breakroom when he was there just so they could stand close to each other, sometimes their hands finding one another’s or an arm snaking around his waist.

He knows it’s necessary, he knows it’s only been a day, but the lack of what they used to have feels heavy like a weight in his chest, and the moment he gets ready to leave from work, seconds before Connor, he finds him fast, hugging him tight, kissing his jaw before standing on his tip-toes and properly kissing him.

There isn’t a date tonight, but Gavin needs this to help him survive, he thinks, and maybe that’s a terrible word choice considering the strange bond between them now. The snap. The trying to undo the reliance between each other.

But Connor holds onto him, too, kissing him back, not letting go even when Gavin’s hit his limit of what he’ll allow strangers and co-workers see of him being like this.

“Tomorrow,” Connor says quietly, like a promise. They’ll see each other tomorrow, even if it’ll be another day like today. There’s little else attached to the word, just the thought that he’ll be able to have another morning with him, maybe him being the one to steal a kiss, and another goodbye.

“Don’t forget about Friday,” Gavin replies, pulling away but holding onto the edge of his jacket. Reminding him as if Connor isn’t an android that would have the day filed away anyways. “Date night.”

“Right. Friday.” Connor smiles a little, reaching up and tipping his chin up again, like he’s going to kiss him. But he doesn’t. His hand just moves to cup the side of his face, a thumb passing over his cheek. “Can’t wait.”

Gavin doesn’t think it’s what Connor wanted to say, just like he doesn’t think it’s what he really wanted to say the night before. But he doesn’t say it, either. He can’t bring himself to say it first. He doesn’t know if he can bring himself to say it at all.

_ I love you. _


	5. May

**MAY1, 2040**

He catches Gavin off guard, which is something he is semi-proud of, but he has an edge. Gavin’s been tired all day, getting a new cup of coffee nearly every hour and falling asleep at his desk. Connor isn’t allowed to ask him if he’s okay. It’s against their new rules if he considers it against their  _ no non-work related conversations allowed rule _ , which he rather hates, even if he thinks they might help.

But he finds Gavin anyway, pulling him off to the side, a hand wrapped around his waist and a kiss pressed against the side of his head. Gavin turns automatically, looking up to him, about to say something when Connor cuts him off with another one on his lips.

“Breaking the rules,” Gavin whispers quietly, breathlessly. 

“I’m technically off work early,” he says. “I’m technically not breaking any rules.”

“You’ve found a loophole.”

“Yes.”

Gavin smiles and reaches a hand up to his face, holding it for a moment, looking like he’s half ready to shove Connor away with a joke prepared and half ready to keep him there forever. Connor knows he doesn’t like PDA. He knows he doesn’t like anyone seeing them, and he’s the same. He would rather have this in private, but behind the wall in the breakroom is sometimes as private as it gets unless they slip away to a closet or an interrogation room, neither of which would surprise Gavin like this.

And he’s running late. He shouldn’t still be here.

“It’s only been a few days and you’re already regretting it?”

Connor nods, “I miss you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He knows, but he knows his feeling of that isn’t the same as Gavin’s. He doesn’t think Gavin believes he’s the type of person that people can miss. He doesn’t think Gavin believes that Connor wants to be around him. He’s saying that Connor is ridiculous as though Connor was joking when he said he missed Gavin, and maybe he was, a little bit. It wasn’t the same extent of missing him like it was in March, half a month lost to Gavin refusing to speak or look at him.

“You can live without me,” Gavin says quietly, looking away from him, focusing on the details of his shirt. His hands even move away from Connor entirely and he’s leaning away, like he’s trying to break free from his grasp.

“I can,” he says. “I just don’t want to.”

“Idiot,” Gavin whispers quietly. It’s not the same way he recreated before, in the night, at his place. So maybe it’s the daylight, maybe it’s the station, maybe it’s the other people. Maybe it’s the new rules they created. He doesn’t know. Gavin kisses him before he can say anything else, and pulls away quickly. “Friday.”

“Friday,” Connor returns. “I have to go.”

“No more breaking rules, okay?”

Connor shakes his head, reaching out to grasp his hand, bringing it to his lips once, “I promise. No more.”

Gavin smiles at him in a way that makes Connor unable to wipe one from his own face. He wonders if last year, he would’ve ever believed he’d see Gavin like this. Softer. Rounded edges. Letting Connor borrow his clothes and give him gifts and kiss him like this. He’s so different, but he’s still the person Connor knows from before. He just isn’t trying to be mean anymore, he isn’t trying to hurt.

_ Friday.  _ Friday he will get to see him outside of work. Friday they’ll have their date. Friday will mark almost a week to evaluate if their rules are getting them anywhere, but how much can really change in a week anyway?

A lot, he thinks. In the span of a week he had Gavin stay over at Hank’s place with him. In a week, Tina was hurt. In a week, him and the others rid the garden of weeds and replaced them with seeds to grow brightly colored flowers, including a sunflower, just off the side of the porch, next to where Connor sometimes sits with Sumo at night time to be alone from the confines of the house.

_ Friday. Friday. Friday. _

He hopes by then the feelings in his chest are a little clearer.

  
  


[ID: Chloe and North wandering the narrow paths in a store, surrounded by flowers and plants.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — More plants o(^▽^)o

posted  **MAY 1, 2040 **

——————————

Simon and Josh are both busy today. It’s just him and Chloe, with North tagging along looking as if she’d rather not be there. He doesn’t blame her. It’s boring, probably. She follows them through the aisles at the store, looking around at the different plants. Things they can add into the garden. Bushes along the side of the house in the front, maybe. Or a new tree to put out by the sidewalk. They diverge down different paths. Splitting up and wandering for other things, too. Rocks to fill in the spaces in the garden, maybe. Trying to decide whether or not they like the look of grass or if the hassle of pulling weeds constantly will be too much. Or choosing between the soft gray stones and the deep red ones to line them with. If the stone circles or the stone squares look better.

It’s all up to Hank, really. It’s his home. He didn’t say much about any of it. Trusted them with all the details. It didn’t matter how sly Connor thought he was being when he tried to see what Hank would prefer, he’d always be caught, always told that it was his project, not Hank’s. That this is Connor’s home as much as it is his.

He finds North down an aisle of bird feeders, staring up but not really looking at them. Pretending to, he thinks, so she can sort out of her thoughts.

“North?”

“Are we leaving?” she asks, turning to him. The two have barely talked. He’s okay with that. She intimidates him. He feels like she can see right through him. Of all the people he worried about outing him as nearly killing Markus after they won, it was her. He remembered how she looked at him, and it was the look that reminded him of everything he had done before, how little he would fit in with Jericho.

It’s why Connor didn’t stay, even though he wanted to. He wonders what his life would’ve been like if he had.

“No,” Connor replies. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

North nods, offers a small, false smile. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you go back to work at the DPD?”

He’s never been asked that before. Hank, he thinks, just asked him if he wanted to. And he’d said no, then. That he never really wanted to come back. He just didn’t use so many words. It was a very short, very quick  _ no, not right now.  _ And the conversation had been done with until a month later when Connor asked if Hank could help find him a job and he’d said  _ yes, please, take me back there where I died a hundred times. _

It seems cruel to say it, but he does tell her the truth.

“I had nowhere else to go,” he shrugs. “I didn’t think I’d be good at anything else.”

“It’s what you were built for.”

He nods.

“That doesn’t mean you had to do it.”

“No,” he says quietly. “But what else was I meant to do?”

She looks at him like there is something obvious hanging between them and there is—he could’ve gone to Jericho. He could’ve helped them found their little home for runaway androids looking to establish themselves as people, as living beings outside of the purpose they were given. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t ask the others to look past what he was designed to do—to hunt and kill them—and give him a place to rest his head. Connor stayed with Hank and he went back to the DPD. It didn’t occur to him that he could’ve tried anything else other than ruin someone’s life.

Maybe he should’ve. Maybe he should’ve done something other than move in with Hank and take over.

“You think you’ll ever leave?”

He nods, fast, “I want to.”

“Oh,” she seems taken aback. “Then do it.”

Connor shakes his head, “I can’t.”

It’s not like he feels like he belongs at the DPD, it’s just like—

Like he feels like he belongs  _ to  _ the DPD. That he won’t be able to get himself to leave unless somebody else does. Maybe if Hank retires and works somewhere else. Or if Tina takes up a job somewhere he can tag along with her to. Or Gavin, even. If anybody left, he’d follow them in a heartbeat.

“Why are you asking? You don’t want to be at Jericho?”

“It’s lonely,” she says quietly. “That’s all. Can we go? Find Chloe and leave?”

He nods, because he can tell she doesn’t want to be here any longer, even more than before. North is tired of being at this place and he can see in her eyes that there are tears ready to form, as though she is ready to seclude herself into somewhere private and dark she can cry.

He doesn’t know what to say. If he should say anything at all. He wants to comfort her like he always wants to comfort people but even his social relations program can’t tell him what to do in a situation like this with a half-stranger.

Instead he comes to her side, reaching out tentatively to her, grasping her hand for a moment before looking back to the wall of bird feeders.

“Do you want to pick one? We don’t have one for the garden yet.”

North nods slowly, taking a step forward and lifting a metal one from where it rests on the hook. It has a rusted look to it. Antique and old. He likes it. He thinks Hank will like it, too.

“North?” he says quietly, taking it from her hands. “You can always—”

“Talk to you?” she smiles, almost like it’s a joke. “Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

She raises a hand to her face and brushes at the skin on her cheeks like she’s trying to rid herself from the tears that haven’t yet spilled over. He understands what she means, though. Last year he was terribly alone. He couldn’t bring himself to try and have a real friendship with anyone. Even Hank it was difficult. He lived with him but it was hard trying to work past all the barriers that had been put up between them.

Connor can understand how isolating it is to feel like the odd man out. Josh hasn’t said anything about Simon and Markus getting together, but he can see that they might spend time with one another and exclude her. And then Markus is busy with work, isn’t he? Running the entirety of Jericho, even if North is half of it, too. Josh and Simon and Chloe are always leaving to be here, always leaving her behind.

It never even occurred to him to try and invite her to be a part of it. Connor thought Simon and Josh had and she’d never had the time or the desire to come with.

“Maybe,” she says quietly. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”

He nods as she walks away towards the front of the store and something in the pit of his stomach is telling him that even if she is seriously considering this, she won’t. This won’t be the end but it is hardly the start, either.

  
  


[ID: An empty booth at a diner, lit dimly by neon signs hanging on the walls. The fabric of the seats looks worn and even ripped in some parts.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — ٩(๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و IT’S FRIDAY ٩(๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و 

posted  **MAY 4, 2040 **

**lt.sumo ** @connor_rk800 why don’t you yell at him for eating badly

|  **gayvin-greed ** @lt.sumo go away

|  **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo How do you know I don’t?

——————————

It’s the only place still open by the time they get off work. A crappy diner that Gavin used to go to when he first started working at the DPD. It’s where him and Tina started to become better friends, both coming here for coffee late at night. Better than the stuff at the station, but mostly it was the change of scenery. The quiet nature. The fact that it’s a diner that isn’t overly stuffed full of people. The lighting is warm, the seats a dark brown and deep red. It feels more comforting than the bright blue and whites and grays of the DPD.

Gavin brings Connor here because it feels like a place he used to call home. A little bit like watching that movie, waiting for his reaction. Connor doesn’t say much. He sits across from Gavin at the booth, laughing with him, telling him stories about how Markus is teaching him to play the piano but mostly all they do is talk. It’s strange—hearing how Connor interacts with other people. He’s so quiet sometimes, it’s hard to picture him talking with other people. Gavin gets updates about the garden in Hank’s backyard, about things Sumo’s done that he hasn’t quite caught on camera. He hears about Connor continually losing in chess games against Markus, because he is never invested in the game enough to try. He’s better with words, which is almost amusing, but he tells Gavin about how many Scrabble games he’s won against the others. Markus or the gardening crew, which never feature the missing two members of Jericho.

“Do you hang out with North at all?”

“No,” Connor replies. “She likes to keep busy. Staying with Markus, doing the work for Jericho.”

He doesn’t elaborate on it any further, but the way he looks away from Gavin’s face, the smile shifting away, tells him there’s something more. And Gavin remembers reading up on deviant files, although it took very little to know that most android’s deviating wasn’t from positive circumstances.

Everyone has trauma to work through. And he knows she’s a WR400. He knows where she was before everything happened.

“Tell me about you,” Connor says quietly. “What’s your week been like without me?”

“Boring,” he says immediately, and regrets it, because even if Tina is trying harder to be like her old self, to recover from everything that happened, it is still quiet in his little corner. Chris always half asleep or only wanting to talk about his kids or books—topics that are better suited for conversations with Connor. He misses him, sitting on the edge of his desk, making smalltalk about stupid things. Smiling like he is now. Like an absolute idiot.

God.

He hates how much that smile affects him. Makes him forget all the reasons he tried to avoid this relationship in the first place. And Connor smiles so often that it’s hard to find the moments in between to keep Connor at a distance. He keeps trying. He was so eager to jump onto the idea of them moving slower. If they move too fast, if they get too close together, it will only hurt more in the end.

“So you miss me?”

“Shut up,” Gavin says, and he kicks underneath the table, hitting Connor’s legs lightly. “It’s only been a week.”

“But you miss me.”

“Maybe. You gonna make me say it?”

“No. Wouldn’t want to force you to say something like that. You’re already getting too soft. What happened to you being tough?”

“I  _ am  _ tough.”

Connor laughs and Gavin hates it and he loves it and he laughs too because he’s never met anyone like Connor before and it’s this wonderful thing. The gift that keeps on giving.

  
  
  


[ID: City buildings, clustered together on the corner of a busy street, the sun setting in the background.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — The city can be so beautiful.

posted  **MAY 7, 2040**

——————————

“Can I tell you something?” Gavin asks.

Connor shifts the phone in his hand to the other side, swapping it with the leash that Sumo tugs on as he moves down the sidewalk of Hank’s neighborhood.

“Yeah.”

“It might piss you off.”

Connor smiles a little, as though he needs to make the expression to help ease Gavin’s stress when he isn’t even here, “That’s fine. It wouldn’t even be that new of a thing.”

“Oh? I piss you off?”

Connor thinks of the year spent, feeling Gavin’s gaze on him, feeling it shift into something else. Knowing that Gavin liked him and refused to do anything about it. Yes, he thinks, Gavin pisses him off sometimes. Because they lost so much time in the last two years that they could’ve been together.

“What did you want to say?”

He hears Gavin shift on the other side of the phone, “Just that our rules fucking suck.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “I want to smother you sometimes.”

“I don’t think that’s against our rules as much as it is against the law,” Connor replies.

“You know what I meant,” Gavin says. “Do you think they’re helping?”

Connor goes silent, rounding a corner of the street as Sumo tugs on the leash to go down a different path than their usual route. He lets him, not seeing a reason as to why he should restrict Sumo’s walk.

He doesn’t know. It hasn’t been much time. They haven’t had these rules in place for very long. Little over a week. But he would guess it has, just a little. Maybe Connor is lying to himself just so they can both agree to end this little test they have going. Maybe he just misses the moments that Gavin would sneak over to him during work and leave a kiss against his forehead.

And he has to question why they started this in the first place. Connor doesn’t want to stop loving Gavin, he doesn’t want to minimize the feeling or condense it down into something he can manage. He just doesn’t want to feel like he is this in love with a person this quickly.

“A little,” he says quietly.

“Do we keep them, then? Or do I have to quit the DPD and get a different job?”

“Do you want to quit?” Connor asks.

There’s silence on the other end of the line. Not even the movement of Gavin shifting his weight or moving objects around to pretend that he’s too busy to reply. Just the quiet, punctuated only by distant sirens.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I was just joking.”

“Okay,” Connor says softly. “Do  _ you  _ think the rules are helping?”

Gavin sighs, waiting a moment before answering. This time, Connor can hear the sound of a bell ringing. A cat, he assumes, and he pictures Gavin sitting on his bed, petting Latte or Cappuccino, and Connor realizes he never knew if the rules were ever put into place to help Gavin. Connor never asked if he felt the same way. If he thought this was too much love too fast, because Connor assumed he was broken, that he was the one needing fixing.

“I think we should get rid of some of them.”

“Which ones?”

“Talking at work,” Gavin replies. “I miss you. I don’t know. It’s stupid, right? It’s not like you went anywhere.”

No, but Connor knows what Gavin means. It is like before, when Gavin stopped talking to him. He’s still there, but Connor feels like he is missing a part of him. A large chunk carved out and dropped away. Leaving them both quiet and restless.

“Okay. Let’s scrap it, then. You’ll still call me, though, right?”

“You like phonecalls?” Gavin asks. “You’re such a freak.”

He laughs, but doesn’t argue against it. He knows Gavin prefers texts. He knows Gavin likes it because it is easier to say some of the cheesy things when he is typing them instead of voicing them. But Connor likes hearing Gavin’s voice. Not just because it helps solidify it as Gavin being the speaker, but because he likes Gavin’s voice in general.

“I’ll still call you. Wake you up at three in the morning. Annoy the fuck out of you,” Gavin replies. “If we can get rid of the stupid rule.”

“Of course,” Connor says. “I like that. It’s a fair trade.”

“Good,” Gavin whispers. “I have to go, Con. Tina is coming over.”

“Okay,” he replies. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Gavin.”

“Goodnight, Con.”

He hangs up, just as Connor remembers that Gavin had pluralized  _ rules.  _ That he was trying to get rid of more than one. Not just the no-talking-at-work rule, but something else, too. 

  
  


[ID: A chalk menu at a cafe, listing off the different prices for various drinks.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — ⅽ[ː̠̈ː̠̈ː̠̈] ͌

posted  **MAY 9, 2040 **

**tina_tot** future cat names?

|  **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot bully

——————————

Tina looks almost as if nothing ever happened to her. The bruises are gone, barely any trace of them at all. But there’s other things that linger behind, things that tell him that everything still hurts, that everything isn’t okay. It’s something as subtle as her clothes, for the most part, and her hair. She leaves it down, like she’s hiding behind it. She used to always have it up, pulled back in a ponytail to keep it out of her face. Now it’s always around her shoulders, longer than she’s ever let it grow. Gavin thinks he remembers her saying she was planning to cut it, just before everything happened. But now it’s like a curtain she can use to disguise herself. Hats, too. Beanies pulled down low, something she can fidget with when she’s growing restless. And she’s traded out her usual clothes. Hoodies, most often the one that he gave her the night she came to him. But a few others, too. Baggy and loose with sleeves that she draws her hands up into, hoods that she pulls up over her head. She covers every inch of her body that she can, except when she has to wear her uniform, but she is good at finding ways around that necessity.

Gavin feels cruel for wondering what happened. He feels cruel for thinking she’s wrong for not going to the police with this. He feels awful and horrible for thinking, sometimes, that she is protecting them by doing this. But then he thinks of when he was a child and he never told anyone about his father hitting him, he never said a word when he wanted to kill himself. It isn’t the same, but it’s similar, he thinks. The shame of it, keeping it buried down deep. Because maybe if he had spoken up, he would have a good relationship with Eli and his mother would be alive.

Connor had told him he was scared of anything happening to him, and Gavin feels the same way. He’s terrified anything will happen to Connor. He’s terrified that someday he’ll come into work and Connor will be gone. He’s terrified that he’ll find out Connor was beaten nearly to death and there won’t even be a marking on his body except the drying Thirium on his skin. Maybe Gavin should feel lucky, in that matter, that he will never see bruises marking Connor’s body.

He tries to listen to Tina talk, but her words are so quiet and broken sometimes that it’s hard to understand what she’s saying and he’s learned lately that it matters very little if he responds, as long as he seems to be listening, as long as he’s trying. Even then, he thinks Tina is just gaining the satisfaction and comfort of being able to speak.

He misses her. She’s right here in front of him but he misses her more than anything. If there was anything that matched his fear of Connor getting hurt, it was her getting hurt. The painful reality of it and the useless nature of him in the equation makes him feel sick. There’s nothing he can do but be with her, and even then he knows he isn’t always the person she wants to be around. She wants to be with Chloe right now, he thinks. She keeps checking her phone, like she’s waiting for a text to ring in. He does the same, sometimes, waiting for a response from Connor.

Connor, who he wonders how much of his protection and care for Gavin extends. He said he never wanted Gavin to get hurt—maybe not in so many words, but he’d still said it. He wonders if that encompasses him hurting himself. He can feel the pain on the inside of his arm where a new mark was made last night. Burns are funny that way. Sometimes they’re the most painful thing in the world. Sometimes his tears shift from sadness to agony and he rushes to bandage it up thinking he’s caused more of an injury than necessary. But sometimes they are completely numb. Sometimes the heat of the metal burns all of the nerves away and leaves nothing but a wound behind worse than all of the others.

Gavin sucks in a breath, suddenly, sharply. It catches Tina’s attention and she stops mid-sentence, turning her head at him. He can’t tell her what’s wrong, so he lies. His leg fell asleep, that’s all. The pain of straightening it was more than he thought it would be. It always hurts more than he thinks it does.

And she continues, stumbling over her words now. Before she might’ve kicked him and laughed because that was the stupid type of friendship they had. More like siblings. Always more like siblings. He wonders if Eli would like her. If they would be better friends than Gavin and her are. He cuts the thought short, focuses his attention back on his cup of coffee.

When Gavin gets home, he’ll get rid of everything. The nail file and the lighters. Every last one of them. Even the one he uses for candles, the one in the pocket of his jacket, the few in his junk drawer, the one by his nightstand and the two in his car. He acquires them without meaning too, sometimes. He used to have a ridiculous collection. They weren’t special in any way—just lighters. The same plastic black ones again and again. Tina took them all when she’d found out about it, just like she took everything that could be harmful to him. All of the knives and the silverware. Replaced them all with plastic instead. She even took the plates and the bowls—said he might break them and use the fragments. Terrible for the environment, he had joked, and she had gave him a look that told him this wasn’t a joking matter and it never was. It’s just always strange seeing Tina serious when it isn’t involved with a case.

Gavin will get rid of them all. He won’t buy any more. He won’t replace them. He’ll stop. He thinks if Connor saw the markings on his arm he’d ask Gavin to stop anyway, and at least if he does it on his own volition, it won’t feel like he is being torn apart, like he is a child that is being yelled at again like it felt when Tina went through every square inch of his place, even if he deserved it.

He doesn’t know if Connor would do that. If he would scour every surface for something he might use to harm himself. There’s too much. There’s always too much. He’d have to be bound up to keep himself from finding a way to injure himself when he felt he needed it. Gavin can turn his own fists on himself if need be.

When he was a child, he tried to slam his head against the wall. The first time he hit it, he was in too much pain to do anything else. He can’t remember if it was a joke or not. Something from a movie or a show that he was doing some fucked up comedy routine to imitate. He barely remembers it. Probably concussed himself. Who the fuck knows.

Gavin is struck by the realization that he wishes Connor were here, suddenly, so he could lean against him. Not hug him or kiss him just rest his head on his shoulder. He feels empty and stupid and he can’t concentrate on anything anymore. Every time he tries to think about something it ends up back to pain and blood and bruises and he wonders if he’ll ever truly escape that or if his life is going to be inherently and always tainted by some type of violence, whether or not it is against him.

  
  


[ID: Birds on a powerline, probably on Hank’s street.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — ˏ₍•ɞ•₎ˎˎ₍•ʚ•₎ˏ

posted  **MAY 11, 2040 **

——————————

Gavin calls him when he’s wandering the streets again. Never going very far, sometimes bringing Sumo along with him. Connor never responds to texts when he’s walking. It’s too difficult, and he doesn’t like standing in the way of other people, even if he is usually the only one around.

Gavin calls him, and his voice is a little rushed as he spits out the words, “Do you want to go to the carnival with me this weekend? Tomorrow, actually. I got the day off. So do you. I… I bribed Hank to cover for you.

“You bribed Hank?”

“A lot of donuts and tickets to a basketball game.”

All of that just so the two can go on a date.

“I didn’t think you’d like carnivals.”

“I do,” Gavin says. “Some kind of bias because I never went as a kid, you know? It’s a long story. Stupid. Do you want to go or not?”

“I’d love to.”

  
  


[ID: A ferris wheel at a carnival. The picture is taken from Connor’s spot in line waiting,

warping it to look much taller than it likely is.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — („• ֊ •„)

posted  **MAY 12, 2040 **

**lt.sumo** thought you were afraid of heights?

|  **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo No! Absolutely not.

**gayvin-greed** (づ￣ ³￣)づ i got you babe

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed (≧◡≦) ♡

|  **lt.sumo** @gayvin-greed ( ་ − ་ )ུ

|  **gayvin-greed** @lt.sumo bitch

|  **tina_tot** @lt.sumo @gayvin-greed ||☆FIGHT☆||´Д`*)9

——————————

Connor wasn’t looking forward to the Ferris wheel, but he also impatiently waiting for it. The entire time at the carnival they move from one booth to the next, Gavin letting him lead the way around. He spies Chloe and Tina few times, too. Once by the cotton candy, where Tina is laughing and pushing Chloe away as she tried to shove some bright pink candy into her face and Gavin had turned to him and made Connor promise he wouldn’t do the same thing.

And he hadn’t. He kept his promise. But he did bump Gavin’s arm, not entirely on accident, while he had an ice cream cone in his hand and was left with bright blue smudged across his nose and his mouth twisting in the way like he wants to be angry or wants to pretend to be angry but he can’t quite grasp it. Connor had won him a stuffed animal in return. A black cat made out of cheap fuzzy fabric and ironed on eyes. He let Connor name it, him shouting  _ blueberry  _ over the sound of carnival music and loud conversation.

He thinks it’s also, probably, the most affection they’ve allowed each other to have in public since their rules were put in place, and maybe even before. They didn’t hold hands at the DPD, but here they never let go. And when they wait in lines for the rides, Gavin leans against him with his eyes closed, tired from working all night but insisting that they keep this date. There’s a moment, at one point as they wait for the carousel, that Connor thinks Gavin falls asleep and he’s afraid to move him, even though the line starts to rush forward.

And as the day starts to come to a close and their money disappears, replaced with funnel cakes and overpriced foods and losing at carnival games designed to get as much money out of the players as possible, which never sways Connor from his goal of making Gavin go home with as many stupid stuffed animals as possible. Gavin even wins him one, too—the ugliest possible ostrich stuffed animal that’s ever been created when he rings the bell on the Hi Striker.

The sun is setting but the place is still crowded as they make their way over to the Ferris wheel, Gavin not letting go of Connor’s hand for a second, like he’s afraid to lose him in the crowd. They’ve only made a few trips outside of the carnival before coming back. Putting all their stuffed animals and prizes for safe keeping in the backseat of Tina’s car. Connor doesn’t know where they went. Their paths cross on and off again, sometimes wandering together before they’ll disappear once more.

He waits in line with Gavin, brushing his hair from where it went a little messy from the Tilt-A-Whirl.

“Stop,” Gavin says quietly, pulling away from him. “You’re not my mom.”

“You look like a mess.”

“I’m tired, don’t bully me.”

Connor smiles and leans forward to leave a kiss against his forehead, “We can leave after this.”

“Are you going to come over?”

Connor bites his lip, using the distraction of moving forward in line as a reason not to answer. Another one of their rules—no staying the night. For now, at least. To prevent them from doing anything that neither of them are ready for. But he trusts Gavin and he trusts himself that they can stop if they say so. He knows he doesn’t want to have sex. Not right now. For some reason it doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s because of what Tina said. Telling him how much Gavin would let other people use him that way, how sometimes he would be left with bruises creeping up around his neck and his face because he didn’t care if it was violent as long as he felt like he was worthy of someone wanting him.

It’s not that he thinks Gavin is broken in that way. It’s not that he doesn’t ever want him. There are plenty of nights where all he thinks about is wanting Gavin. It’s just the trying to prove that isn’t  _ why  _ he wants him.

“Is that alright with you?” he asks, instead of giving a proper answer, because he would like to come over. The two nights they’ve spent together, despite both being made from negative events, despite both of them being terrible memories, he liked it. Connor liked sharing a bed with him and he liked waking up to Gavin curled up close to him. It was nice being able to exist with each other without the pressure of anything else. That he could let down every last one of his walls and trust that it wouldn’t be a mistake.

Gavin doesn’t say anything, he only nods as they move forward again. This time stepping onto the ride, the door closing behind them, the little caged-in pod moving upwards. It rocks underneath them and Connor holds onto his hand a little tighter. He isn’t terrified of heights, but he can’t help but look down and sometimes think about what would happen to a body if they fell from the top of a building or slipped over the railing or tumbled out of their seat on a Ferris wheel. Or what might happen if the pod broke off. How the metal would twist and bend and clatter against the ground and how there would be nothing left.

It was a mistake, doing this, but he holds onto Gavin a little tighter and tries to look out at the horizon at the setting sun. Connor feels Gavin press closer to him, lips against his neck, kisses left there soft and brief.

“Are you afraid of heights?”

He nods, regretting it for a moment at the idea that Gavin might make fun of him, but instead he rests his face a little closer, an arm moving around the front of his body, holding onto him.

“Don’t worry.”

“You’ll save me?”

“Yeah,” Gavin says quietly. “I’ve got some really incredible super powers I never told you about.”

“What kind?”

Gavin laughs a little, unprepared to answer, but making one up quick on the spot, “Control metal. Like Magneto. So if we break off, I can keep us afloat. And I can stop time. I’m super fast, like the Flash. Superman Junior.”

“Superboy?”

“No, just a shitty knock-off with better powers.”

“Are you weak to Kryptonite?” Connor asks, and he doesn’t even know why he has this information. So much about superpowers that was never really required for him for any reason.

“No,” Gavin replies. “Can I be cheesy, for a moment?”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m only weak to you.”

Connor laughs, and he feels Gavin smiling against his skin and he feels a little safer now. A little bit better. The fear is there, sitting in his stomach until they come to the end of the ride and get off, but it isn’t making him clutch onto the edge of the pod and it isn’t making him feel like everything about today was a bad idea, since it all led up to that ride.

When they get off, Gavin is holding him a little closer. An arm wrapped around his waist instead of holding his hand. They wander around the carnival until they find Tina and Chloe, saying that they’ll wait for them in the car. And they do—making their way into the backseat, clearing a spot. Gavin leans against his shoulder, eyes closing. They talk, for a little bit. Gavin keeps telling him to go on and he finds himself just rambling about things. Life in general. How he would like to have his own house someday with a giant backyard he can fill with flowers and trees and a place to lay underneath them. In a hammock, maybe, looking up at the stars and the moon. He doesn’t know when Gavin falls asleep, he is too busy daydreaming about the idea of his own place. Not that he doesn’t like living with Hank, not that he doesn’t love Sumo and spending time with them—just the idea of having a place to himself. Something he can have that is his.

Maybe Gavin’s, too.

  
  


[ID: Chairswings, blurred from the motion of spinning around fast.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — [No caption added.]

posted ** MAY 12, 2040 **

——————————

He wakes a few times. Once when Tina and Chloe get to the car, falling asleep shortly after again. Another time when they stop at a gas station and a last time when Connor is lifting him up, carrying him to the front door. Gavin thinks about fighting him, telling him to put him down, but he’s too tired to form the words and the only thing that comes out is a mumble and he finds himself curling a little closer to him, arms wrapping around Connor’s neck. He’s barely awake, but he can tell Tina is laughing, whispering a joke that doesn’t quite make it’s way past his foggy thoughts.

Connor sets him down on the bed, carrying on a hushed conversation with Tina outside of his bedroom door. He knows she must’ve been the one to unlock it. Connor doesn’t have a key. He should get him a key, he thinks. It wouldn’t take long. One trip to the store and he’d have one in some stupid bright blue color for him. Maybe a little rubber cap that looks like a dog. It would fit right alongside the others on Connor’s keyring, and Gavin’s would stand out. Something special among the others.

“Gavin?”

“Hm?”

“Are you awake?”

He tries to respond but all he manages is another mumble, too tired to really move. He feels the bed shift under Connor’s weight as he sits down beside him. There’s a hand on his face, moving along the shape of his jaw, resting on his chest.

“You still want me to stay?”

“Please,” he manages, his eyes finally opening now, despite their protest. “Stay.”

He can see Connor smiling in the dark, “You should change. Brush your teeth.”

“Too tired.”

“Okay,” Connor says quietly. “Do you…”

“You can stay here,” Gavin replies, reaching out to him, like he can keep him from going anywhere. They hadn’t discussed this before. Sleeping in the same bed. Before it was kind of an unspoken thing, now there is too much time and space to think about where they would properly belong.

Connor nods slowly, “Can I steal a shirt?”

“Steal whatever you want except the cats.”

His eyes close again, trying to protect that image of a smile on Connor’s face. HGavin e wishes he were an android sometimes. He could save a snapshot of that smile forever. Connor has an unfair advantage when it comes to that. Always getting moments like that to keep when all of his feel so fabricated.

It’s a long time before he feels Connor lay back down in the bed beside him. An arm around his waist, his face resting against the back of Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin lost his shoes at one point. He doesn’t realize that until he feels Connor’s legs press against him, like he’s taking up every curve of his body. His jacket is gone, too. Nothing left but his jeans and his shirt. He should change. Connor was right, but now he doesn’t care anymore. He’s comfortable here and he can ignore the rest.

“Gavin?”

“Go to sleep,” he says quietly.

“I need to tell you something.”

He opens his eyes, staring out at the darkness of the room. “What?”

“I had fun,” Connor says, and he feels him kiss the top of his shoulder. “I want more dates like this.”

“Stupid carnival rides and shitty foods and prizes?”

“Yes,” Connor replies. “It was perfect.”

“Take you to the beach next time,” Gavin whispers. “Is that good enough?”

“Yeah.”

They fall into silence again, and he can feel Connor’s grip tighten a little bit more, pulling him even closer. He knows he’s going to say something even before he does. It feels like that kind of night. Quiet and dark and waiting for things to be said that can’t be unsaid.

“Thank you.”

“For?”

“Keeping me safe.”

Gavin smiles a little bit, his eyes closed, sleep willing to take him. It doesn’t bother him, for some reason, that Connor keeps talking. Maybe because he doesn’t have moments like these often. People telling him that they enjoy his company, and Connor says it so sincerely. He says everything so sincerely.

“I—” Connor stops himself. “Sorry. I’m keeping you awake.”

“Go ahead.”

He feels Connor hide his face against his back, like he’s trying to suffocate the words. Terrified of saying them. “I love you, Gavin.”

Gavin is silent.

He means to say it back. He opens his mouth but the words don’t come out. He can’t form them properly. They’re stuck.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Connor says quietly. “I’m sorry. I just needed to tell you.”

He nods, but his hand finds Connor’s and he holds onto it tightly, bringing it to his mouth to press a kiss against it and hoping beyond everything that it conveys that he loves him, too, even if he can’t say it right now. Even if the words won’t form, even if he is struggling to breathe, to not cry, to not do anything but try and believe that Connor means it. That he isn’t lying or fooling himself.

It’s impossible.

It’s impossible to believe that Connor isn’t just being an idiot right now, saying those words.

Gavin blinks back tears and he thinks about turning to Connor and kissing him to solidify that he feels the same way but he can’t move with this tightness in his chest. He can tell him in the morning, he decides. Tomorrow he’ll tell Connor the moment he sees him. He’ll be able to force the words out, then. Maybe. Hopefully.

But he can’t do it right now. He can’t even believe the words right now.

Gavin closes his eyes, willing the tears away, choking the rest of them back.

“Get some rest, Gavin,” Connor whispers. “You need it.”

He nods, and he means to say the same thing to him. He means to tell Connor he needs to sleep, too, but he can’t speak anymore. He’s been silenced by three stupid words he never thought he’d hear again. Or even deserve to hear again, if he did. Because that’s the real truth—if Connor means what he says, if he isn’t being stupid, if this is real, it isn’t as though Gavin will ever deserve his love.

  
  


[ID: City buildings, clustered together on the corner of a busy street, the sun rising in the background.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — ~~the city can be so beautiful sometimes~~

posted  **MAY 13, 2040 **

**connor_rk800** BULLY.

——————————

The next morning, when Connor is in his kitchen making coffee and wearing Gavin’s clothes, he tries to say it. The words come out quiet and whispered and he doesn’t think Connor hears him over the sound of the machine going, not even noticing Gavin has woken up yet and watching him.

He doesn’t know what to do. Yesterday feels like a distant memory, like it didn’t actually happen. To surreal for it to have actually happened. But there are the things they won littering the couch and the smell of carnival food is still stuck to his clothes.

Gavin makes his way over to Connor, wrapping his arms around his waist, resting his head against his shoulder and closing his eyes.

“Good morning.”

“Morning,” he whispers. “Con… about last night?”

“You don’t have to say it back.”

“Okay,” Gavin says quietly. “But can I tell you something?”

Connor nods, letting Gavin stay like this, and Gavin is grateful. He doesn’t know if he could get the words out if Connor was looking at him.

“I do. I just… I can’t say it. I don’t know why. But I do.”

“You love me?”

He nods, squeezes Connor a little tighter. And he remembers his past boyfriend who rarely said the words to him, how they never felt real. Gavin feels cruel for doing this to Connor, but he can’t get his mouth to work or his vocal chords to cooperate when he tries to speak.

“Okay,” Connor says. “I love you too. You want some coffee?”

“Please,” Gavin replies, but when Connor turns to face him and Gavin’s grip loosens, he kisses Connor instead. Long and hard and maybe breaking an unspoken rule of trying to have a normal, slow relationship.

  
  


[ID: Cropped photo of a bookstore sign, which glows a soft neon pink.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Time to read.

posted  **MAY 16, 2040 **

**lt.sumo ** we’re running out space for this stuff, connor

|  **connor_rk800** @lt.sumo Gavin will build us a new shelf.

|  **lt.sumo** @connor_rk800 the fuck he will

——————————

Hank helps him go through the shelf—taking off books they’ve both read before, books that they don’t think they have any interest in reading, or books that they don’t remember acquiring and don’t want to keep. It’s all to make room for the new ones Connor bought today, sitting in a bag on the couch behind him. Stuffed full with new paperbacks and hardcovers.

They have boxes, packed full of books to donate. Old cookbooks that they don’t use thrown in. All of the recipes that Connor knows Hank likes have been written down carefully in a notebook with new measurements to be specified to Hank’s liking.

“Connor?” Hank asks, placing a book in the box at their feet.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t…” he sighs, frustrated and annoyed already. “I don’t want to sound like some kind of grandpa or anything, but you and Gavin…”

“What about me and Gavin?”

“He’s… allowed to come over,” Hank says quietly. “If you want him to. He’s allowed to stay the night.”

“Oh,” Connor replies. “Okay.”

“But you’re not allowed to do anything.”

“I’m sorry?” he asks.

“You’re not allowed to fuck, okay? I don’t… I don’t want to hear it. I don’t—”

“Hank—”

“It’s just weird, alright? And you’re in Cole’s old room, so—”

“Hank, we’re not having sex. And we wouldn’t. Here. I mean. We wouldn’t do it here.”

Hank’s face is red, and Connor feels like his should be the same. They have stumbled into an awkward conversation, both refusing to look at each other. Finding the books in their hands increasingly interesting.

“Okay. That settles it.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I don’t need to have the birds and the bees talk with you?” Hank asks.

“Please, don’t,” Connor whispers. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

“Me too.”

  
  


[ID: Lightning during a storm, caught nearly perfectly as the branches

of lightning extend outwards in the cloudy purple sky.]

**GAYVIN-GREED** — [No caption added.]

posted  **MAY 19, 2040 **

——————————

He likes the rain, but he doesn’t like the lightning or the thunder. Not because it scares him, but because it reminds him of his childhood. When Gavin was a kid, he remembers how terrified Eli got during storms. They’d hide together, Gavin being the protector. He was always the protector. Taking the hits and the yelling from their father so Eli never had to suffer through it.

Gavin isn’t stupid. He knows Eli would still have been hurt emotionally, but it would’ve been reduced to as low as possible if Gavin was around. And he was always there for him. Running through the woods behind their house, making up plans, looking for a future.

When it storms, Gavin remembers waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of Eli squirming his way into his room. Hiding most often in the closet, a teddy bear in his arms and holding it tight.

Gavin hates storms, because he hates thinking about his brother. He hates thinking about the betrayal.

So he tries his best to distract himself. Trying to soothe the cat’s fears away when the thunder crackles across the sky, rain pounding against the windows. The wind so loud it sounds like it’s trying to break in. He gives them treats and toys and knows they don’t care, but hopes that it helps them in a way that Gavin tried to help Eli before.

  
  


[ID: Focused onto Connor’s hands carefully patting dirt back into place around the roots of a plant.]

**JUSTJOSHIN** — Almost done!

posted  **MAY 23, 2040**

——————————

It’s a bit sad, he thinks. Him and the others have done their part in fixing up the backyard. Simon even repainted the fence, turning it a bright shade of white over the faded brown that it used to be. Flowers line the side of the house, a watering can and gardening tools have found a home in a small shed that Josh helped Chloe build a few weeks ago. Everything is done. Everything is planted. The birdhouse and windchimes are hanging, the soft sound of it and the birds fill the quiet space in between.

There isn’t a reason for them to come over anymore. Connor can take care of the rest of it on his own. It makes him question everything. If they actually built up a friendship in these last few months or if it’s hopeless and impossible to look forward to more. If they will be nothing without this task to keep them together.

And then, just before they pack up to leave, Josh stops on his way toward the door, “Next week, then?”

“What?” Connor asks.

“The front yard. We should get started on it.”

He smiles, feeling that same bright light of happiness flood through him. The kind he gets when he’s around Gavin and he feels like he is allowed to be happy again.

“Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

  
  


[ID: Gavin cleaning his glasses with his shirt. Idiot.]

**TINA_TOT** — Going to scratch up your lenses doing that, boy. @gayvin-greed

posted ** MAY 25, 2040 **

**gayvin-greed** stop fuckin taking secret pics of me

|  **tina_tot** @gayvin-greed no.

**connor_rk800** owo? Gavin wears glasses?

|  **tina_tot** @connor_rk800 con just discovered his new kink

|  **connor_rk800** @tina_tot TINA, PLEASE...

——————————

Gavin doesn’t have work today, which he is thankful, because he can’t find his fucking contacts and he doesn’t want Connor to see him with the ugly old frames he barely wears. They hurt his head, forcing him to lay down and watch Tina steal the cats for photos. She is getting back to her old self. Using her mutual day off to come over to his place and put hats on Latte that match the one she wears.

It’s enough for him to not comment on her tormenting the cats again. Any other time, he’d tell her to leave Latte or Cappuccino alone, but Gavin finds it hard to do today. Not when Tina is smiling like she used to, leaning against Latte to take a selfie and post online.

_ Matching hats. _

So stupid, but it is something Tina from a year ago would do. Regaining who she was before. Gavin can’t even tease her about the fact she came over to watch a movie. He can only lay on the couch, suffering through his headache, watching Latte shake her head violently and paw at the hat stuck there as Tina helps her get it off, feeding her treats as a bribe.

  
  


[ID: A few plants, mostly succulents, sitting in a shopping cart.]

**CONNOR_RK800** — Never too many plants.

posted  **MAY 27, 2040**

**gayvin-greed** you >> (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

|  **connor_rk800** @gayvin-greed You: (灬♥ω♥灬)

|  **tina_tot** @connor_rk800 THIS IS THE PDA POLICE OPEN UP

|  **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot I’M NOT GOING BACK TO JAIL

——————————

He doesn’t mind shopping alone, but he prefers to be with others. When Connor is by himself, he can only wander through the aisles and get what’s on his list. He can’t get off on tangents with Hank about stupid things—like buying holiday decorations so early. He can’t make jokes with Chloe about whether or not they really need more plants in the house.

But he doesn’t mind the time he gets to spend by himself and think. It is always more comforting to think in a store than at Hank’s place or the DPD. There is a barrier between him and the others that feels like he isn’t alone, despite the fact nobody gives him a second glance.

It keeps Connor from crying if his thoughts go too far, the strangers protecting him from the shame of crying in public. But tonight he doesn’t need other people to help keep the tears at bay. He’s happy, thinking of Gavin as he marks items off his list. As he sneaks away some plants into the cart and a blueberry scented candle he can add to Gavin’s collection.

Connor is happy, and he is impatient to get home. To see Hank and play cards with him while a movie plays in the background. To stay up late texting Gavin, teasing him about a present that will be left on his desk. To pass messages back and forth with Tina, half crafted to see if she’s doing better and half sent to help distract her from some of the pain still lingering over since her attack. To place the plants along the shelf with the other succulents, the basil in the kitchen window. To keep his life going and focusing on the things he looks foward to and not dwelling on the eventualities of death and sadness.

  
  


[ID: A grainy movie production company logo on a television screen

from the point of view inside of a blanket fort.]

**GAYVIN-GREED ** — movie night with @tina_tot

posted  **MAY 29, 2040**

**tina_tot ** hard to watch when yr screaming every 5 seconds

|  **tina_tot** (＠O＠;) << you

|  **tina_tot** wait

|  **tina_tot** （⊙△⊙） << you

|  **tina_tot** Wait !!!!

|  **tina_tot** ( ͒˃̩̩⌂˂̩̩ ͒) <<< you 

|  **tina_tot** WAIT

|  **gayvin-greed** @tina_tot blocked.

——————————

He isn't scared. Gavin Reed does not get scared. He's thirty-seven years old, he can handle a few horror movies. A couple of times he jumps, but it is purely based on shitty tactics made by the directors. Mostly they laugh. Him and Tina poking fun at stupid decisions made by the protagonist or the weird things the ghost or demon does in their attempt to torment the main character. He isn't scared. Of course he isn't scared. He doesn't get  _ scared _ .

But—

After Tina leaves, there's a feeling. A creeping, nagging thing in the back of his head. He walks across the room to shut the light off and get ready for bed and finds that he can't do it. He hears a sound and he knows it's the people above him walking around or the city life outside but there's still some tiny fraction of him that is picturing a demon walking across the room behind him or a ghost face materializing in the shadows.

He isn’t scared. Gavin wouldn’t admit that. But he does leave the lights on. A trail of them from the kitchen to the bedroom. To hesitant to turn any of them off. What if he needs to get up in the night and get a cup of water? He wouldn’t be able to make it down the hallway. He wouldn’t be able to run to the lightswitch. He wouldn’t be able to push open the bathroom door, too scared that the darkness on the other side was left unattended for too long and a creature has manifested on the other side. Gavin leaves the light on, averting his gaze from the mirror as he leaves. A sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that tells him if he looks at his reflection while he brushes his teeth that something will appear behind him.

He lays down in his bed, looking up at the ceiling, glancing over to the windows again and again. There is a city outside. Street lamps and cars and buildings lit up with neon signs and life. But then he thinks of the dark alleyway between two shops across the street, the small darkened windows of the apartment building a little ways away. Dark enough that anything could be lurking there, watching him.

_ Scared _ .

He’s scared. Terrified. Unable to close his eyes because something appears behind them and they fly open on their own accord to tell him there’s nothing but a white swirling pattern above his head. The cats are quiet, but sometimes he hears the creak of footsteps and he can’t tell if it’s from the people above him or if there’s someone out in the living room. Gavin’s heart is beating fast, tears springing into his eyes like a coward. Terrified that this will be another restless night because of his own stupid actions. Thinking he could handle a horror movie. He’s thirty-seven. He should be able to separate the fiction of a movie from the reality of his apartment.

But his hands find the phone anyway, composing a message with words so carefully selected to sway Connor from knowing the truth. Some stupid need to protect this piece of himself. Keep Connor thinking of him as—

He doesn’t know.

It isn’t as if he’s pretending he’s someone other than he is. Gavin just doesn’t want Connor to know. It makes him feel strange. Worthless, maybe. It’s a stupid leap upon first glance. To think of himself as a terrible coward just because he’s scared from watching a horror movie. But it’s when he adds it all up. The inability to turn off a single light. The pulling of curtains on his windows closed as tight as they can and using books to hold them in place so that the air vents don’t let him see even a sliver of the night sky that could so easily shift into a monster ready to attack. It’s the fact he’s been reduced to someone with hands near shaking and impossible to close his eyes because of a shitty horror movie.

It’s just too much, sometimes. And normally Gavin could manage the night alone. Hunt down his cats and lock them in the room with him. Put something on the television that’s a little light and happy with little that could cause his thoughts to wander instead of shut off entirely. He’s been in this situation before. He can handle it on his own.

He just doesn’t  _ want _ to.

  
  


**MAY 29, 2040**

“You’re here.”

“You asked me to come,” Connor says, watching Gavin closely. The text had been phrased more like a booty call than their relationship can quite permit yet. The two of them keep sex a separated topic. Something to discuss later. When they feel a little less fragile. When Connor knows Gavin is sure that Connor isn’t here just for that. That he won’t be like the countless others that have used him and abandoned him.

He wants Gavin to know he’s here. For good. That Gavin will have to try his hardest to push Connor away and that might not even be enough.

“You didn’t message me back.”

“I did. Maybe it didn’t send?”

Gavin pulls his phone from his pocket, and Connor catches a slight tremble in his fingertips as he unlocks the phone. Takes a moment to find their history before looking back up.

“It didn’t ring in.”

“Gavin—”

“Can you close the door?” he asks, taking a step back, leaning against the wall like he’s trying to hide from the dim light of the hallway. Connor’s seen him do it before. Connor’s done it himself. The need to condense down as small as possible, remain unseen in the shadows.

The difference here is that Gavin isn’t hiding away in the dark. The lights are on, plastic popcorn tubs in the sink, wrappers and soda bottles littering the countertops. Movie night. Connor had seen the picture posted on Gavin’s account before he came here, but he would’ve known despite the mess.

He steps in the rest of the way, closing the door behind him, wandering further inside to say hello to one of the cats stretched out on the couch as Gavin locks the door behind him.

“Everything okay?” Connor asks, turning his attention back to the detective– _ his _ detective. “It’s late.”

It’s late and there have been very few times that Gavin has called him over when it’s past midnight. A lot of them ending in tears being shed or shoved away and hidden. Gavin is always upset when he calls Connor over at this hour. It’s just a matter of whether or not he’s going to admit it.

“I wanted to see you.”

It doesn’t answer his question, but Connor let’s it slide. The same pressing fear that if he asks how Gavin is doing too many times that it will start a fight. He’s never wanted to make Gavin talk about things he’s clearly avoiding. They are fragile, the two of them. Fragile beings separate and fragile as a collective whole. It’s likely unhealthy, he thinks. It doesn’t feel like walking on eggshells around Gavin, it doesn’t feel bad when they’re together, but when either of them are upset it sometimes feels like they are moments from breaking the last little bit they have left.

“Didn’t even want to wait until morning?” Connor asks, and he’s wondering if his words are coming off passive aggressive when he doesn’t mean them to, he means them more as a joke. It’s sweet. A nice thought that Gavin was too eager and impatient to wait a few more hours when the two would head into work.

“I wanted to see you,” Gavin says as he moves closer, reaching out to touch Connor’s hands. “And not have to worry about anyone else.”

He’s lying. Partially. There’s a little bit underneath it. An ulterior motive as to why Connor is here. The shaking of his hands, the avoiding of the question. But he’s telling the truth, too. Gavin wanted to see him.

Connor smiles and grasps the fabric of Gavin’s shirt, pulling him the rest of the way so he can rest his head against Gavin’s chest. It isn’t often that he gets to hold him like this. Sitting on the edge of the couch, looking up at him.

“Gavin?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

Gavin smiles, hands moving to Connor’s hair, running through it slowly. “It’s late.”

“Yes,” Connor replies. “You should sleep. Unless you want to talk?”

Gavin shakes his head, hands moving to cup Connor’s face, lifting it up so he can lean down and press soft kisses against his skin. On his forehead, where the LED used to be. On the bridge of his nose, copying Connor’s kiss against his scar. A last one on his lips, holding him there for a moment.

“Sleep is better.”

Connor nods, knowing that sometimes he acts like an overbearing mother. Telling Gavin to get his rest, sleep more and drink less coffee. Worrying about little things he does. He keeps a lot of it held away inside, not wanting to push Gavin out of his comfort zone. The need to let Gavin talk about the things that hurt him in his own time instead of being shoved out of the safety of this relationship and into the dangerous territory of having to lay trauma out on the table between them for Connor to see. It could reopen old wounds. Wounds that have closed or haven’t fully healed yet.

“Connor?”

“Yes, Gavin?”

“Thank you. For coming.”

Connor nods again, leaning in to steal another kiss but Gavin is moving away too quickly, hands moving to take Connor’s, tugging him up from the couch and towards the bedroom. Connor stops, forcing Gavin to stop pulling him away and instead yanks back, forcing Gavin back to his side so he can kiss him properly. The way he wanted to when he first showed up here tonight. Tipping Gavin’s chin back and kissing him deeply as though it will convey everything that Connor feels.

“I’ll turn the lights off, okay?” Connor whispers. “I’ll be there in a second.”

Gavin agrees hesitantly, lingering for a moment in Connor’s arms before slipping away to the bedroom. Connor stands in the empty space, looking back to the cat who has fallen back asleep again. He picks up a few things off the table. Pieces of popcorn left on the wooden surface, plastic wrappers that sealed a box of candy shut. He stops for a moment, tilting his head to look at the DVD sitting in the middle. He doesn’t recognize the title, but he doesn’t need to. All horror movies utilize the same concepts in creating an unsettling image to put on advertising. Always thinking they’re one-upping someone else but falling into the same templates everyone uses. Dark colors and shadows. A hidden face. Font that looks like it was scratched there.

Connor doesn’t jump to conclusions. He researches first, for a quick moment. Running through every bit of content he can find about the movie in all the databases he has. Seeing first if there was something that might have upset Gavin. Even if it was something minor. A child being hurt by an adult. Certain words being used. Images and themes that could have caused Gavin’s hands to shake in the way they had.

He finds nothing and settles on what his first assumption was:

Gavin is scared.

Gavin is scared and he doesn’t want to be alone.

It’s endearing, that he asked for Connor to come to comfort him.

“Connor?” he hears him call from the room. “Hurry up.”

_ Hurry up. _

Connor brushes the smile from his face, tossing the trash away and the bottles in the recycle quickly. Flipping the light switches and heading down the short hallway to the bedroom.

  
  


[ID: Gavin sleeping soundly, eyes closed and looking peaceful, laying against Connor’s chest.]

**CONNOR_RK800 ** — ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

unposted draft saved  **MAY 30, 2040 **

——————————

“What took you so long?” Gavin asks, watching Connor kick off his shoes and leave them by the dresser.

“Cleaning up,” Connor replies. “You left a mess.”

“It was Tina’s fault,” he says, like a child putting the blame on a sibling. Close enough, really. Tina is more of a sister to him than Eli is his brother. “It was her turn.”

Connor smiles and hesitates by the doorway, “Light on or off?”

Gavin’s own smile falters. He’s been caught, he supposes. This will be the time when Connor starts to join in on Tina’s teasing that he’s so easily frightened.

“On,” he decides, letting his fear of the dark win over the fear of being ridiculed. “If that’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” Connor says. “Door open or closed?”

Gavin’s eyes shift to the dark hallway behind him. Imagining a creepy doll running across it in the dark. What the sound of porcelain feet would be like against hardwood floors.

“Closed.”

Connor presses the door closed behind him, moving over to the bed. “Gavin?”

This is it. He tenses, prepares himself for the comments. The hundreds that Connor might be able to come up with in just a few seconds of knowing that Gavin only wanted him here out of the fear of dying from some supernatural entity living in his closet.

Which isn’t entirely true, either. Gavin always wants Connor here. He just gave in tonight because of that terror.

“Yeah?”

“Do you trust me?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Gavin nods, slowly.

“I’ll keep you safe.”

“Promise?” Gavin whispers, knowing that the way Connor is talking right now he’s encompassing more than just this. More than just tonight.

“I promise.”

“Can you prove it?”

“How so?”

Gavin pulls the blankets back, nodding towards the space, “Come here.”

As if Connor wasn’t already planning to climb into the bed with him. As if this proves anything more than Gavin’s need and desire to have him close now instead of a few minutes into this conversation. 

Connor moves, laying down beside him, situating himself in the bed before pulling Gavin close to his chest. Gavin snuggles as close as he can manage, and then closer still. Pressing his face against Connor’s skin, arms tightening around his torso. He lets their legs tangle together, trying to get as much contact with him as possible.

“Comfortable?” Connor asks.

Gavin nods. He feels safe. The sound of his Thirium regulator spinning, the feel of his arms tight and close around him. The warmth and the comfort. He feels safer, here with Connor, than he has in years. Maybe even his entire life.

“Get some rest, Gavin.”

He will. His eyes are already closing, the images behind them filled not with the intrusive and grotesque things of his nightmares or the movie, but instead of the way Connor smiled at him a few minutes ago. He falls asleep to the soft feeling of Connor’s hand trailing down his spine up and down again. Soothing motions that help him drift him off into the dark.

And he thinks, hopes, wishes—

Maybe he will be okay.


End file.
